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THE 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 



OP THE 



DIVINITY SCHOOL 



OF 



YALE COLLEGE. 



M:AY 15 th and 16tli, 1872. 



NEW HAVEN: 

PRESS OF TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE AND TAYLOR. 

1872. 




^O-C' 









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tmp96 031645 



CONTENTS 



Page 

Historical Address, 

By Prof. George P. Fisher, 3-30 

List of Alumni and invited guests present, 31-34 

Progress of the Seminary during the year past, 35-37 

Yale Theological Seminary and Foreign Missions, 

By Rev. Charles P. Bush, D.D., 38-63 

Remarks by Rev. S. Gr. Buckingham, D.D., i 63-64 

Yale Theological Seminary and Home Missions, 

By Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, D.D., 64-72 

Reminiscences of Professor Fitch, 

By Rev. 0. E. Daggett, D.D., - 73-79 

Visit to the G-raves of the Deceased Professors, 79-82 

Professor Gibes as a Scholar and Teacher, 

By Prof. James Hadley, 82-86 

Life and Services of Professor Goodrich, 

By Rev. L N. Tarbox, D.D., 87-91 

Dr. Taylor and his Theology, 

By President Noah Porter, 91-100 

Address of Rev. Lyman H. Atw^a.ter, D.D., 100-102 

Address of Hon. Peter Parker, M.D., 103-106 

Financial History and Condition of the Seminary, 

By Prof. George B. Day, 107-118 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY, 



Half a century having passed since the establishment of the 
Divinity School of Yale College as a distinct department, the 
Theological Faculty addressed an invitation to the Alumni and 
former members of the School, the pastors of the Congregational 
Churches in Connecticut and neighboring States, and special 
friends and benefactors of the Seminary, to unite with them 
on Wednesday and Thursday, the 15th and 16th of May, in com- 
memorating that event. 

The afternoon of Wednesday was occupied with the addresses 
of the graduating class in the College St. Church. In the evening, 
after prayer by Rev. Joshua Leavitt, D.D., a member of the first 
class in /the Seminary, the historical address which follows was 
delivered by Prof. George P. Fisher before a large audience in the 
Center Church. 

THE HEST HAL! CE}sTUET OF THE TALE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL. 

The Department of Theology in Yale College is fifty years old ; 
but Theological Instruction here dates from the very foundation 
of the College. The Seminary, as a distinct establishment, grew 
out of provisions that had existed before, for the education of min- 
isters. It was only the fruit and consummation of what had been 
planted earlier ; a new step taken in an old path. In presenting 
a sketch of the origin and history of the Seminary, it is necessary 
to give some account of what the college had done before in the 
work of theological education. If the fathers of I^ew England 
had organized no means for the training of a minister in liberal 
and professional studies, it would be, considering their spirit and 
aims, the most unaccountable fact in their history. 

A modern artist has chosen for the subject of an impressive 
painting, the Return of the Mayflower. On the desolate shore at 
Plymouth, there stand, apart from one another, two or three little 



groups of pilgrims, their eyes intently fixed upon the solitary ves- 
sel as it recedes out of their sight. They are watching to see the 
last link severed, that bound them to their old homes, to the pop- 
ulous and civilized lands of Europe, from which they are now sun- 
dered by the dreary and almost impassable ocean. It may help 
us to imagine the sense of loss and separation that was felt by the 
founders of New England when they found themselves cut off 
from the loved abodes of civilization and culture, and thought of 
what might befall them and their posterity after them. Espe- 
cially must the first ministers of New England, the men who had 
been trained at Emmanuel College in Cambridge or at Brazen- 
nose in Oxford, or at some other college in the ancient universi- 
ties of their father-land, have missed the genial associations, — the 
scholarly circles and pursuits, the learned libraries, which had 
been their delight. Still more must they have been concerned 
lest, in this inhospitable soil, far from the old hearth-stones of cul- 
ture and religion, with the necessity of constant toil and of war- 
fare with the savages that was imposed upon the settlers, learn- 
ing should die out. In particular must they have been concerned 
to provide educated ministers for the churches of a community 
which had been transplanted to this distant region for the avowed 
purpose of preserving and diffusing and handing down the princi- 
ples of a pure Christianity. One of the noblest and most charac- 
teristic events of that heroic age of ISTew England history, was the 
act of the Legislature of Massachusetts Bay, passed only ten years 
after the first landing at Salem, for the founding of a college. In 
the midst of all their poverty and privations, they crowned their 
school-system by the establishment of such an institution; and 
the first commencement of Harvard College was held in 1642. 
The first inhabitants of New Haven Colony were not behind their 
Massachusetts brethren in zeal for education and religion. John 
Davenport planned a college ; and this and other like schemes 
were postponed chiefly for the reason that the people of Massachu- 
setts thought that one college was enough for the scanty popula- 
tion of New England. At length in 1700, the ten ministers, who 
acted as the organs of a general wish on the part of the clergy 
and the people, formed themselves at New Haven into a society, 
and, shortly after, at their second meeting, held at Branford, com- 
pleted their act of founding a college, by the formal donation of 
books to serve as the nucleus of its library. The design of the 
founders of both Harvard and Yale, as is evident from their 



solemn declarations, as well as from their character and the spirit 
of the times, was preeminently religious. The interests of religion 
were foremost in their thoughts. It was the " religious and libe- 
ral education" of youth which they designed to accomplish. 
They intended to educate civilians as well as clergymen ; to train 
young men for service in church and state. Yet, as was natural, 
the education of ministers was the most prominent object which 
they had in view. Both Harvard and Yale were modeled in gen- 
eral after the English colleges : Yale having before it, also, the 
example of its older sister. In the English Universities, the 
Faculty of Theology, like the other professional Faculties, never 
attained to a distinct, corporate existence, as was the case at Paris 
and other continental universities. Another striking peculiarity 
of the English system was the extent to which the university was 
absorbed in the colleges, so as finally to be almost supplanted by 
them, instruction being given within the colleges or to their 
inmates. The first ministers of New England went, or might go, 
directly from their colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, to their 
parishes. The obligation of a continued residence between the 
reception of the B.A. and M.A. degree was gradually giren up. 
It was formally abrogated at Cambridge in 1 609. The students 
of the various colleges pursued their studies domi forisque ; that 
is, within the colleges under their tutors or in the public schools 
under the university lecturers or professors. 

It is only necessary to look at the course of study at Harvard in 
the early days, which was followed substantially by Yale, to see 
that theology was a prominent and even a principal study. 
Besides the trivium and quadrivium, the humanities and mathe- 
matical and physical science — the studies that would ordinarily 
fall under the Faculty of Arts — the various branches of theology 
held a high place. " The» course of study at Harvard," says 
Dr. Palfrey, " adopted from the contemporaneous practice of the 
English Universities, consisted of Latin and Greek (in which some 
proficiency was required for admission) ; of logic, arithmetic, 
geometry and physics ; and of Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac and Divin- 
ity, — the forming of a learned ministry being a main object of the 
institution."* The Latin theses which the students discussed at 
their graduation were often on topics not inappropriate for the 
College of the Sorbonne. At Yale, the curriculum was of the 
same general character. Besides the drill in logic and syllogistic 

* History of New England, II, 48. 



6 

disputation, there were regular recitations in Treatises upon Dog- 
matic Theology, Ames and WollebiuS being the favorite text- 
books, and also in Casuistry, besides the study of the Hebrew and 
Greek Scriptures. " In general," writes President Woolsey, " it 
may be said that the system pursued by the earlier teachers rested 
upon logic and theology, and pre-supposed that the students would 
choose the clerical profession, rather than the offices of civil life. 
To this cause is to be ascribed the part which the study of Hebrew 
played for a considerable period."* " The institution which they 
founded," says Dr. Bacon, speaking of the fathers of N^ew Eng- 
land with reference to Harvard and to Yale, " was essentially, in 
fact and in design, a Theological Seminary ;" but not exclusively 
such, since it was assumed that the same studies that would train 
men for office in the churches, " would at the same time train as 
many as might be required for places of magistracy in the com^ 
monwealth."f 

It will be interesting to look for a moment at the way in which 
the graduates of the college were introduced into the ministry, 
during the first half century, or prior to the appointment of the 
Professor of Divinity. In some cases here, as at Harvard in the 
same period and in the preceding century, they began to preach 
at once, or almost immediately after their graduation. Thus 
Jacob Hemingway, who Was at one time the sole student in Yale 
and whom Dr. Stiles calls the " first undergraduate," received his 
first degree in 1704. On the 20th of the next November, the 
village of East Haven voted to ask him " to give them a taste of 
his gifts." He continued to be their preacher until the organiza- 
tion of a church, and was then ordained as its pastor. It was not 
uncommon for the graduates of Harvard to begin to preach within 
a year after they received the Bachelor^s degree. This was done, 
for example, by Dr. Increase Mather, T^ho graduated in the class of 
1656, and by Dr. Benjamin Colman, a noted preacher in his day ; 
and Dr. Samuel Cooper, his colleague in the Brattle street church, 
one of the most eloquent and famous ministers of his time, was 
called to his office about a year after his graduation, when he was 
only nineteen years of age. His case was considered remarkable 
merely on account of his youth and of the importance of the 
station in which he was placed. Abraham Pierson, one of the 
founders of Yale, was the assistant of his father in the ministry at 

* Historical Discourse, p. 57.. 

f Commeftiorative Discourse at Andover, p. 6. 



Newark, when, a year after his graduation, he was invited to 
become a pastor at Woodbridge in the same State. Not unfre- 
quently at Harvard, — and the same custom probably existed here, 
— young men who were to become ministers, in case they were not 
made tutors, remained for a time as resident graduates. Thus 
Jonathan Edwards, the elder, whose name is the most illustrious 
on the catalogue, was a resident graduate for two years, and then 
went to take charge of a congregation in New York. Edwards was 
not quite seventeen when he took his Bachelor's degree. The early 
age at which many of the candidates for the ministry graduated 
in those days, was a hindrance in the way of immediately assum- 
ing the pastoral office. In most cases they spent some time with a 
minister, reading theological books under his direction and learning 
the practical part of their calling by assisting him in his work. 
But the learning of the profession was chiefly acquired at 
college. The custom of licensing young men to preach, by a 
formal or informal association of ministers, came into vogue grad- 
ually in the early part of the eighteenth century ; and Mather, in 
his Ratio Disciplince^ expressly mentions Ames's Medulla Theolo- 
gicB, which was the college text-book, as the work in doctrinal 
theology on which the candidates for a license might properly be 
examined. The first appearance of anything that can be called a 
school of theology, separate from the college, is connected with 
the rise of the New Divinity, as the Edwardean theology, the 
system favored by the revival preachers, was termed. Bellamy 
was one of the earliest of these private instructors, to whom young 
men resorted to study divinity, and who adopted something like a 
systematic method of teaching them. The modification of the 
traditional theology by the new school awakened the curiosity of 
young men, and promoted discussion and inquiry. There was a 
new style of thinking and a new style of preaching ; and this 
change gave rise to a new form of instruction. Bellamy had 
graduated at the age of sixteen, and had begun to preach when he 
was only eighteen. His power and fame as preacher, coupled 
with the novelty of some of his opinions, drew to him pupils. 
But the course of study in these private schools was almost con- 
fined to doctrinal theology, and was often very brief. Thus, 
Hopkins, soon after his graduation in 1V41, went to live with 
Edwards at Northampton, but he was licensed to preach after 
four months, and the whole period of his residence with Edwards 
was only eight months. 



8 

But although in the first half century of the college, theology- 
was favored, in conformity -with a particular design of the foun- 
ders, which was impressed upon the institution from the start, it 
must be remembered that the course of study in all branches, 
unless logic be an exception, was meagre. The preparation for 
admission was small, and in Hebrew and Greek little more was 
done, for a considerable time, than to read the Psalter and a por- 
tion of the New Testament in the original tongues. Dr. Stiles, a 
graduate of the class of 1746, is said, indeed, to have neglected 
Hebrew for the reason that he did not expect to be a minister ; 
but he was able to take with him from college so little knowledge 
of that language, that at the age of forty, when a pastor at New- 
port, he began the study of the rudiments of it afresh, under the 
tuition of Jewish rabbles. 

The next era in the history of theological instruction in Yale 
College commences with the appointment of the Professor of 
Divinity, in 1755, during the administration of President Clap. 
Doctrinal controversies had arisen in connection with the preach- 
ing of Whitefield and the Great Revival, and the Corporation 
were dissatisfied with the preaching in the First church, which 
the students attended. Accordingly they had resolved, as early 
as 1746, that they would appoint as soon as practicable a Professor 
of Divinity, and in 1753 they established separate worship within 
the walls of college. The new professor was not only to be the 
college preacher and pastor, but his appointment had reference, 
also, to the instruction of candidates for the ministry in the studies 
preparatory to their office. The General Assembly of the colony 
in 1753 recommended the churches to make a general contribution 
for the endowment of the new chair, on the ground " that one 
principal end proposed in erecting the college was to supply the 
churches in this colony with a learned, pious and orthodox minis- 
try ; to which end it was requisite that the students of the college 
should have the best instruction in Divinity, and the best patterns 
of preaching set before them." The contemporaneous proceedings 
of the Corporation contain like declarations in even a stronger form. 
The action of the college in establishing separate worship and in 
ordaining strict doctrinal tests to be imposed upon the officers of 
government and instruction, did not pass without opposition. 
President Clap, whom President Dwight justly considered the 
ablest man who had ever stood at the head of the college, and 
whose successful vindication of its right to be exempt from visita- 



9 

tion on the part of the legislature has won the high commendation 
of Chancellor Kent, defended the action of the corporation respect- 
ing religion, in his pamphlet, published in 1V54, on " The Religious 
Constitution of Colleges, especially of Yale College." He starts 
with the proposition that " the original end and design of colleges 
was to instruct and train up persons for the work of the ministry." 
He explains the religious aims of the founders of Yale and quotes 
their own exposition of the motives that impelled them. " The 
great design," he says, " of founding this school was to educate 
ministers in our own way."* The Corporation fully supported the 
President's views. They declared that " the principal design of 
the pious founders of this college was to educate and train up 
youth for the ministry, in the churches of this colony, according 
to the doctrine, discipline and mode of worship practised in 
them." 

From this time dates the post-graduate instruction in Theology 
in Yale College. But before I leave this early period in which we 
were still in the loins of our parent, I may advert to the noble 
donations of Bishop Berkeley to the Library ; donations which 
comprise a great number of standard works in theology as well as 
in classical and general literature ; a list so well chosen that few 
of them, after this long interval, have lost their value. The col- 
lection of about a thousand volumes which were transmitted to 
the college in 1732 by the great metaphysician, to whom Pope, 
without hyperbole, ascribes 

— " every virtue under heaven," 
was the largest collection which up to that date had ever been 
brought into America at one time. The gratitude of Rector Clap 
moved him to say, after the death of Berkeley, that the college 
would probably always retain " a favorable opinion of his idea of 
material substance," as consisting " in a stated union and combina- 
tion of sensible ideas." But the present incumbent of the presi- 
dential office appears not to have considered it essential to the due 
exercise of thankfulness toward the good Bishop, to adopt, in 
his learned treatise on the Human Intellect, the ideal theory of 
matter. 

"From the establishment of the professorship of Divinity in 
1755," says Professor Kingsley, "and probably from a much ear- 
lier time, there had been generally at the college a class of resi- 

* p. 15. 



10 

dent graduates, wlio were pursuing the study of theology."* He 
adds that their number varied considerably in different years. It 
was a part of the recognized function of this Professor to aid and 
instruct theological students in their professional studies. This 
was fulfilled by Daggett, Wales, and Dwight, in the case of a 
large number whom they trained for the clerical office. The Pro- 
fessor of Divinity, in addition to a course of sermons on the doc- 
trines of theology, which were delivered on Sunday forenoons, and 
which, though designed for the benefit of all the undergraduates, 
were thought to be especially conducive to the instruction of 
those who were intending to become ministers, usually gave a 
weekly lecture on some theological topic, in such a way that the 
lectures, taken together, would constitute a complete system. I 
gather from Dr. Stiles's diary that this lecture, when it was given 
by him, in consequence of an actual or virtual vacancy in the pro- 
fessorship, was addressed to an audience composed of resident 
graduates, and a select number of older undergraduates, — those, 
probably, who were preparing for the ministry. The rest of the 
instruction and assistance which were rendered to candidates for 
the pulpit, by the Professors of Divinity, doubtless varied accord- 
ing to the preference of the successive incumbents of the office. 
In a statute relating to the Professor of Divinity, which is found 
in the edition of the laws, printed in 1195, it was defined to be 
" his duty to give from time to time such lectures and private 
instructions to the resident graduates and students, as he shall 
judge may best preserve and promote the religious interests of the 
college, and tend most effectually to form for future usefulness in 
the work of the evangelical ministry, such of the students as shall 
appear desirous of being prepared for it." " It was the duty of 
the Professor of Divinity," says Dr. Fitch, writing in 1822, "not 
only to be a pastor of the church and a religious teacher of the 
pupils, but also to furnish such students in theology as might be 
reared in the college, or choose to resort to it, with assistance in 
their studies preparatory to the ministry. The history of what 
has been done in theological instruction in the college, is in con- 
formity with this design " — a design which Dr. Fitch has before 
explained — " of its founders and benefactors. Theological instruc- 
tion has always been given to the pupils of the college and to stu- 
dents in divinity ; and there has been maintained in the college a 
strictly theological school. The Rev. Professors Daggett and 



* Sketch of the History of Yale College, Quarterly Register, 1836. 



11 

Wales, and tlie Rev. President Dwight, in his capacity of Profes- 
sor of Divinity, have, each successively, given instruction to stu- 
dents in theology, and prepared many for the ministerial office, 
who have been highly distinguished for their usefulness in the 
churches." Of the large number of graduates of the college who, 
since the founding of the Professorship of Divinity, have entered 
the ministry, " a great portion," says Dr. Fitch, " have been qual- 
ified for their labors by plirsuing their theological education at 
this college."'" It was the custom of the presidents of the college 
in the last century to deliver lectures to the students on a great 
variety of subjects. But Dr. Stiles, the next year after his elec- 
tion to the presidency, was formally chosen by the corporation 
Professor of Ecclesiastical History, and lectured on this subject in 
the college chapel. There seems to have been a desire to keep 
up instruction in this branch. In 1805, Mr. Kingsley was made 
Professor not only of Languages (of which Hebrew was one), but 
also of Ecclesiastical History; and I find it stated by President 
Dwight, in his Statistical Account of New Haven, and in his Trav- 
els in Xew England, that a complete course of lectures in this 
branch was to be given in the college.f Of President Dwight's 
ability and success as a theological teacher of numerous classes of 
resident graduates who came under his tuition in successive years, 
there is no occasion that I should speak. Pupils like Moses Stu- 
art, Lyman Beecher and Nathaniel W. Taylor, who loved and 
honored their teacher more than they loved and honored any other 
mortal, are the best witnesses to his commanding power and excel- 
lence. 

With the death of Dr. Dwight, we approach a new epoch, that 
of the organization of theology into a distinct department. More 
and more in the progress of knowledge and from the altered spirit 
of the times, other studies had encroached upon the domain of the- 
ology, in the undergraduate curriculum. Old sciences were 
expanded and new sciences arose, so that little room was left for 
branches having a direct relation to the profession of a minister. 
Under President Clap the study of mathematics and physics 
was much extended. About the year 1770, through the influence 
of Dwight, Trumbull, the poet, and other Tutors, rhetoric and 

* Ms. Statement to the Prudential Committee, (April 23, 1822). 

f In 1798 Mr. Ebenezer G-rant Marsh was appointed Hebrew Instructor, to 
teach both undergraduates and graduates, a small fund having been given for the 
support of such a teacher, by the Eev, Dr. Salter. Mr. ^.farsh died in 1803. 



12 

Englisli literature were brought in ; at the beginning of the pres- 
ent century, the new branches of natural science were introduced ; 
and later still the modern languages began to knock at the door 
for admittance. 

In the meantime, a higher and more varied theological culture 
seemed requisite for the ministry, and new controversies called for 
a more advanced scholarship on the part of religious teachers, than 
had been thought necessary before. In consequence of the want 
of a rounded, systematic training in the different branches of the- 
ology, the ministry, at the close of the last, and in the early part 
of the present century, had, as regards the scholarship and learn- 
ing which pertain to their profession, not advanced; although 
they were often men of eminent acuteness, wisdom and force. 
To President D wight, whose large and comprehensive mind was 
capable of striking out a new path, of establishing new studies 
and new courses of study, when the time had come for them, even 
if they were not demanded by the public, belongs the credit of 
suggesting and recommending here an enlargement of the means 
of theological instruction. I had it from the lips of Dr. Taylor, 
that when the project of a seminary at Aijdover, was under dis- 
cussion in Massachusetts, the advice of Dr. Dwight was sought by 
Dr. Morse of Charlestown, and Dr. Spring of Kewburyport, who 
visited New Haven for the purpose of consulting him. He 
expressed to them his warm approval of the proposed undertaking, 
but at the same time assured them that he had long been desirous 
of providing a more complete and systematic course of theologi- 
cal instruction in Yale College ; and that he should embrace the 
earliest opportunity of carrying out, in this particular, what he 
deemed to be the design of its founders. After the interview with 
these gentlemen, he stated confidentially to Dr. Taylor, who was 
then his amanuensis, that his eldest son, Mr. Timothy Dwight, a 
merchant of N^ew Haven, had invested a sum of money in a busi- 
ness enterprise, which, with the profits arising from it, T^as to be 
ultimately given for the object just stated. 

In order to appreciate the merits of President Dwight, we must 
not limit our attention to his writings, although his published 
sermons have exerted a vast influence not only in this country, 
but also in Great Britain, where, as I was told by the late Pro- 
fessor Goodrich, they have passed through not less than forty 
editions; so that his grave is still visited by pilgrims from afar, 
by men prominent in the pulpits of England and Scotland. His 



13 

hymn — " I love thy Kingdom, Lord " — is sung wherever the lan- 
guage is spoken. We should not confine our attention to his ser- 
mons, for sermons, with rare exceptions, lose their peculiar vitality 
when the generation is gone that heard them. Nor can we judge 
him by the echo, that tradition brings down, of his pathetic elo- 
quence in the pulpit, although he was undoubtedly one of the 
foremost preachers of his age. We are not in a position to admire 
his extraordinary conversational powers, which impressed all his 
contemporaries ; to hear him pour out the treasures of a mind 
which had been enriched by much reading, by observation and by 
intercourse with men. How different would be our estimate of 
Johnson, if we only had Hasselas and the Vwiity of Human 
Wishes, and if Boswell had never lived ! President D wight's 
power lay, to a great extent, in his personal influence upon men ; 
and it has appeared to me a remarkable proof of his eminent 
qualities that three persons, so unlike one another in their native 
powers and in their pursuits as Dr. Taylor, Prof. Kingsley and the 
late Prof. Silliman looked up to him with equal reverence. But 
there is one monument, which all may contemplate, of the talents 
and worth of President Dwight ; and that is Yale College. What 
he accomplished in building up the college, in bringing in new 
sciences, in enlarging and strengthening the old foundations, no 
one who knows its history can fail to appreciate. It was charac- 
teristic of him to plan the theological department, and to set on 
foot the agency by which his thought was to be realized. 

Dr. Fitch was made Professor of Divinity in 1817, and before 
he had been in office many years the project for a seminary took 
a definite form. In 1822, fifteen students of the class to graduate 
in that year petitioned the faculty that they might be organized 
into a theological class. Dr. Fitch supported this request in an 
elaborate paper addressed to the Prudential Committee of the 
Corporation, a passage from which I have already had occasion to 
cite. In this document he stated that, as Professor of Divinity, 
it belonged to him to attend to the duty which had been requested 
of him in that application ; that in accordance with this obliga- 
tion he had given private lectures, once or twice weekly, to theo- 
logical students since his induction into office ; that the standard 
of theological education had been very much advanced since the 
establishment of the office of Divinity Professor; that it was 
impossible for him to take charge of the instruction in the dif- 
ferent branches of theology, and at the same time perform the 



14 

work wliicli devolved on him in the academical department, espe- 
cially as his health was impaired ; that to refuse the application of 
the students would be to abandon an important design of his 
office. The question that he submitted was " whether exertions 
shall be made to add a new professor to the college who shall 
take a part in the education of the theological students and the 
duties of the chapel ; or shall the education of students in the- 
ology be wholly discarded from the college." The object of 
educating students in theology, he said, must be either pursued 
or abandoned. Against the adoption of the latter alternative, he 
argued with much earnestness, from the primitive design of the 
college, from all that it had accomplished, in the past, in the work 
of educating ministers, and from the advantages to be anticipated 
from the institution of a theological department. "The com- 
mittee," he said, " will take into consideration this primitive design 
of the college, while deliberating on the question w^hich the Pro- 
fessor of Divinity now proposes to them ; and may he be per- 
mitted respectfully to ask of them whether, when acting as guar- 
dians over the trust of our pious ancestors, they can consistently 
convert a school, held sacred by them to the purposes of the 
ministry, into a mere school of science ?" whether " they shall 
wholly discard a theological department so clearly intended by 
the founders, to be the chief pillar and ornament of the college ?" 
The college Faculty, then consisting, besides President Day and 
Dr. Fitch, of Professors Kingsley, Silliman, and Goodrich, re- 
sponded in the same spmt to the new proposition. Their views 
are expressed in a paper which commences as follows : " The 
principal design of our pious ancestors in establishing a college 
in this State, was, in their own words, ' to educate and train up 
youth for the ministry.' The instruction given in literature and 
science they regarded as preparatory to a higher object, a regular 
education in theology; and the college, in their view, combined 
the character of a literary and a theological institution. The 
Professor of Divinity was therefore expected not only to be the 
religious guide and teacher of the undergraduates, but likewise to 
preside over a course of theological instruction for those of the 
resident graduates, who were preparing for the ministry. In con- 
formity with this design a systematic course of education in 
theology has been maintained in the college for a long succession 
of years ; and a great number of able and devoted ministers have, 
by the blessing of God, been thus raised up for His service." 



15 

They then set forth the occasion of the necessity for an en- 
largement of the means of theological instruction here. "A 
question of deep moment," they say, " is therefore presented to 
the friends of religion : shall the department of theological instruc- 
tion be now abandoned and Yale College become merely a literary 
institution ? or shall an effort be made to extend this department 
and place it on a respectable and permanent foundation ?" The 
faculty proceed to suggest that the great end in view can only be 
attained " by the additional services of a professor devoted to the 
theological class ; to be aided in the department of Hebrew Criti- 
cism by the Professor of Languages ; in Sacred Rhetoric by the 
Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, and in Greek Criticism and 
Systematic Theology by the Professor of Divinity." The paper 
dwells on the demand for educated ministers, and on the great 
benefits that are likely to result to the college from a theological 
school in connection with it. The alternative, they affirm, is the 
abandonment of instruction in theology in Yale College and the 
defeat of "the original design of its founders and patrons." It 
was thought necessary that the sum of $20,000 should be sub- 
scribed for the endowment of the new theological professorship. 
In an elaborate Appeal from the Corporation to the people of 
New Haven to contribute to such a fund, which I conjecture to 
be from the pen of President Bay, it is stated that " this college 
in its original constitution was a literary and a theological institu- 
tion," that the Professor of Divinity can no longer be the sole 
instructor of a theological school, in addition to his other labors, 
and that hence "it is proposed to separate the department of theo- 
logical education from the college." The case is argued more 
briefly, but in much the same manner as in the two documents 
which have just been described. In all these papers, the need of 
one other theological seminary in New England is asserted, and 
the concurrence of the friends of Andover in this opinion is 
affirmed. Mr. Timothy Dwight came forward with his subscrip- 
tion of $5,000, which would have been subsequently increased if 
he had not been prevented from carrying out his purpose by mis- 
fortunes in business. The required fund of $20,000 was made up. 
The Corporation in their act which established the Theological 
Department, founded their proceeding on the fact that " one of 
the principal objects of the pious founder of the college was the 
education of pious young men for the work of the ministry." It 
is a happy circumstance that the Professor of Divinity, the College 



16 

Faculty and the Corporation were in full accord as to the desir- 
ableness of this important measure, and in the views and motives 
on which it rested. In the judgment of all, the question was, to 
quote the language of Professor Kingsley, " whether the instruc- 
tion of students in divinity should be abandoned, or the means of 
aiding them in their professional studies should be so enlarged, as 
better to correspond with the existing state of theological learn- 
ing."* And a leading motive of all the parties concerned in the 
movement was the consideration of fidelity to an original design 
of the college which had been pursued in every period of its his- 
tory. It was voted that in commemoration of the services o^ 
President Dwight, the new Chair should bear the title of the 
Dwight Professorship of Didactic Theology. The Rev. Nathaniel 
W. Taylor, who had then been pastor of the First Church in New 
Haven for ten years, was chosen to fill the office. At first Prof. 
Kingsley instructed in Hebrew, and if the vote of the Corpora- 
tion was followed, in church history ; and Dr. Fitch in the Greek 
of the New Testament, and in the criticism of sermons. It was 
understood from the outset that the new department was to be 
" a distinct institution in its funds, its officers, and its govern- 
ment." The aid rendered by the college professors, with the 
exception of the Professor of Divinity, was voluntary, and was 
expected to continue only until the Seminary could supply itself 
with additional teachers of its own. It had no building of its 
own until the old Divinity College was finished, in 1836. 

In this way, the Divinity School, as a separate establishment, 
was fairly launched. But behind a written history, there is often 
an unwritten ; and there are two circumstances that form the 
complement of the narrative which I have just given. One was 
the perceived fitness of Dr. Taylor for the post of theological 
professor. If there was a place that needed a man, it was felt 
that there was a man who was eminently adapted to the place. 
He had attained celebrity as a preacher by the clearness of his 
expositions of the Gospel and by the impressive power of his 
sermons. The individuals who were chiefly interested in building 
up theological instruction here, wished that young men who were 
looking forward to the ministry should be taught by him. His 
agency in an extensive revival of religion, which occurred in 1820, 
established them in this desire. The other fact is the influence of 
Professor Goodrich, who, although his name is not conspicuous in 

* Sketch of the History of Yale College, p. 20t. 



17 

the documents relating to the new organization, was probably- 
more active and efficient than any other in overcoming the obsta- 
cles that stood in the way of the movement. His practical sagac- 
ity and untiring energy were indispensable, from the inception of 
the enterprize to its full accomplishment. 

In 1824 Professor Gibbs was appointed Professor of Sacred 
Literature, both of the Hebrew and Greek. Professor Fitch con- 
tinued to give instruction in Homiletics, Professor Goodrich 
was not formally appointed to the professorship of the Pastoral 
Charge until 1839; but from the beginning his relations to the 
professors were so intimate and his services to the Seminary so con- 
stant, that we commonly think of him as virtually a member of 
the Faculty from the outset. I should not omit to state that he is 
among our most liberal benefactors. Taylor, Fitch, Gibbs and 
Goodrich made up the corps of instructors through the long term 
that constitutes the first period in the annals of the Seminary. 
They were all men of uncommon ability ; they were well united 
in theological opinion and in their general spirit and aim ; and 
yet they were marked by a striking individuality. Each was 
quite dissimilar from all the others. Indeed they were so unlike 
in their native characteristics and in the peculiar work they ful- 
filled, that it seems impossible to weigh them in any comparative 
estimate. Unquestionably the central figure in the Seminary was 
Dr. Taylor. This was not due merely to his intellectual powers, or 
to his magnetic quality as a teacher, but was owing in some degree 
to the fact that the taste of the time turned strongly in the direc- 
tion of metaphysical theology. I have not room for the attempt 
to characterize at length this body of friends and associates. Dr. 
Taylor blended the attributes of a philosopher and an orator ; of 
a philosopher subtle, logical and strong to deal with the most 
intricate inquiries ; of an orator whose conceptions were vivid as 
well as clear, and whose earnest and impressive delivery enabled 
him to enchain the attention and sway the feelings of his hearers. 
When he rose in any assembly, 

— " his look 
Drew audience and attention stUl as night." 

Many can look back in memory to his lecture-room, and see him 
in his chair, discoursing upon the high themes of moral govern- 
ment ; lifting his dark, lustrous eyes as he closed a sentence of 
peculiar point or weight ; then proceeding in that deep-toned, 
modulated voice, and rising at times to a strain of powerful and 
2 



18 

stirring eloqtience. You caBiiot know him from his printed works. 
There was vastly more in the man than can be transferred to 
paper. Everything seemed different w^hen it was warm from his 
lips. His extemporaneous flashes often surpassed his most elabo- 
rate discussions. He had a royal nature ; a weight of personality, 
more easily felt than analyzed; an intellectual fascination that 
cast a spell over all within the circle of his influence. His heart 
was the fit associate of such a mind. He had a soldiers courage, 
that rose as dangers thickened ; but he was as gentle and loving as a 
child. He had no malice. He loved his fellow men, and desired 
their love and confidence in return. 

If Dr. Taylor united in himself the metaphysician and the 
orator, Dr. Fitch was a mingling of the metaphysician and the 
poet. He was a philosopher who appeared to me as well qualified 
by nature for deep and far-reaching theological inquiry as any 
man of whom I ever had knowledge ; yet he had the temperament 
of a poet and carried into eveiy product of his mind an artistic 
feeling. In one mood he might appear a dry metaphysician, 
living amid abstract relations and caring for naught else ; in 
another mood, imagination had the mastery and a singular pathos 
infused itself into his voice and pen. His brief series of lectures 
on Homiletics were considered at the time and for the time to be 
unsurpassed in merit. 

Professor Gibbs was the scholar of the Faculty ; patient, accu- 
rate, thorough and conscientious in all his researches, cautious and 
naturally skeptical in his intellectual habit, but with a profound 
religious sense, and a candor more beautiful than the highest gifts 
of intellect. Lord Melbourne jocosely said that he wished he 
were as certain of anything as Macaulay was of everything. 
This implied criticism would never be made of Professor Gibbs. 
There were not many things of which he was absolutely certain. 
His colleagues were men of a robust tone of intellect. They were 
disposed to conclude and settle things. They did not like to hold 
their minds long in abeyance, or to hang up unsolved questions. 
It was a fine arrangement of Providence that connected with 
them this accomplished philologian, who far outstripped them in 
Biblical learning, as they were not reluctant to acknowledge, and 
wbose doubts and misgivings, as Baxter said of Sir Matthew 
Hale's, were as valuable as other men's arguments. All students 
who were fond of exegetical study, and knew how to ask questions, 
highly appreciated the teaching, as they could not but honor the 
scholarship and Christian excellence, of Professor Gibbs. 



1^ 

Dr. Goodrich had a greater variety of accomplishments than 
either of his associates. He was a discriminating and sound theo- 
logian ; he was a cultured man and versed in literature ; he took 
into view the manifold interests and undertakings of the church; 
he had an enthusiasm of character, a contagious fervor that never 
grew cool ; and, besides these qualities, he was possessed of a 
practical tact, a power of finding means for ends, a readiness and 
shrewdness which, in connection with his familiarity with the 
world of men, his self-denying benevolence, and his catholic spirit, 
qualified him to render services to the institution for which his 
colleagues were less competent. Had he been bred in the Roman 
Catholic church, at a former day, he would have been the general 
of an order, superintending its missionaries, with unselfish zeal, in 
the remotest parts of the globe, and making his power felt in the 
cabinets of rulers. 

If we turn from the Faculty to the students, we find, as one dis- 
tinguishing trait, that they were an enthusiastic body. About 
six hundi'ed young men had received their education here, either 
wholly or in part, before the death of Dr. Taylor. Of this num- 
ber there were comparatively few whose minds were not aroused 
and stimulated, and who did not pursue their studies with an 
unusual enthusiasm. They went forth to their work with ardor 
and hopefulness, with the feeling that there were great thiags for 
them to do, that preaching is no perfunctory task but a mighty 
instrument in doing good. If sometimes this confidence in the 
power of lucid exposition and in the practical effectiveness of 
logic was too great, a little experience corrected the error. As a 
class I think it would be allowed by impartial judges that they 
have come up fully to the average degree of ministerial usefulness, 
and have reflected credit upon the school where they were trained. 
I am not aware that the uncommon intellectual activity, the zeal 
for theological discussion, that prevailed here, operated on the 
whole to chill the spirit of piety. The instructors were all men 
of earnest religious character ; they kept their eye on the practi- 
cal work of the ministry ; they were familiar with revivals of 
religion, and their pupils in many cases caught their spirit. On 
our list are foreign missionaries like Azariah Smith, and, at a later 
day, Macy and Aitchinson, both of whom died in China ; and 
home missionaries, not only the Illinois Band, of which President 
Sturtevant is one of the survivors, which did a great work for 
Christianity and for civilization in that State, but also many others 



20 

who in the infant communities of the West have planted the faith 
and the religious and educational institutions of New England. 

The Seminary had not been many years in existence when it 
was obliged to pass through a tempest of controversy. Dr. 
Taylor and Dr. Fitch followed the example of the New England 
divines before them in thinking for themselves, and all their con- 
clusions did not square with what many of their contemporaries 
received as true orthodoxy. Under the auspices of President 
Edwards and his followers, there arose what was termed, in the 
last century, New Divinity. The leaders set out to defend the 
Calvinistic system against formidable objections which were 
brought against it by the Arminians of that day, in Old England 
and New England. But as it often happens in like cases, as it 
happened, for example, to Grotius when he undertook to vindicate 
the church doctrine of the atonement against Socinus — the sys- 
tem was modified in the very process of defending it, and parted 
with certain features that were considered by its advocates 
vulnerable ; just as the outworks may be demolished for the 
greater security of the citadel. How far the elder Edwards him- 
self is responsible for these modifications and how far they are to 
be credited to his son, to Bellamy, to Hopkins, to Emmons or to 
Dwight, I will not here stop to inquire. When Dr. Taylor came 
upon the stage, the reigning theology in New England had dis- 
carded certain tenets of high Calvinism,- -for example, the impu- 
tation of Adam's sin and limited atonement. The aim had been 
to render Calvinism defensible theoretically, and to remove practi- 
cal difficulties and objections on the side of the ordinary hearers 
of the Gospel, who sometimes claimed that the doctrines of orig- 
inal sin and the impotency of the will delivered them from 
responsibility and rendered it useless for them to attempt anything 
for their own salvation. The New Haven divines pursued the 
same path, had the same practical ends before them, and, I think, 
deviated less from Dwight and their other predecessors than they 
had differed from the system of the seventeenth century ; less, 
too, than Doddridge and other so-called Calvinists in England had 
modified the previous theology. The New Haven theology re- 
sembled, in its general type and in some of its particular features, 
the theology of Baxter, which was always considered to be mid- 
way between High Calvinism and the system of Arminius and 
Episcopius. The New Haven divines were interested in solving 
for their own satisfaction problems that brought perplexity to 



21 

many minds ; but they were sincerely attached to what have 
generally been considered, and what they considered, to be the 
elements in Calvinism of religious value ; and they were chiefly 
solicitous to put aside what constituted, according to their view, 
an obstacle to the successful preaching of the Gospel, and blunted 
the edge of Christian warnings and exhortations. This is not the 
place to review the controversy. No one ever doubted that Pro- 
fessors Taylor, Fitch and Goodrich maintained their cause with 
consummate ability. The influence of the controversy has afiected 
the American church in almost all its branches. The prevalent 
tone of preaching has been altered in consequence of it. It gave 
rise to ecclesiastical disturbances beyond the bounds of New Eng- 
land, and the sound of it was heard throughout the land. 

During all this whirlwind of controversy, when the " Christian 
Spectator " was filled with its reviews and rejoinders, and pam- 
phlets on the one side and the other were eagerly caught up by 
curious readers, the Seminary prospered. The more that young 
men in other colleges and schools of theology were warned 
against Dr. Taylor, the more they flocked to his lecture-room, 
whether from the adventurous temper indigenous in youth, the 
appetite for forbidden fruit that has infected our race since the 
rise of horticulture, or, as we may charitably hope was the fact, 
from that generous curiosity and hospitable feeling toward new 
ideas which are peculiar to youthful minds and are among the 
indispensable conditions of progress. But as Dr. Taylor, and his 
colleagues with him, grew old ; as his health became weakened, — 
although he never lost his mental vigor and fire ; when, also, the 
active opposition to him mostly ceased, and the public interest in 
the particular questions which had engrossed his attention and 
formed the topics of debate without and within the walls of the 
institution diminished, and the public mind was turned to other 
sides of theology, or to political and social questions of great 
moment, the attendance upon the Seminary fell ofi". The funds 
for aiding students were small, and in various other facilities and 
advantages the Seminary compared unfavorably with other insti- 
tutions of a similar character. Dr. Taylor died in 1858, Dr. Good- 
rich two years after, and Professor Gibbs in 1861. When Dr. 
Taylor died, the Seminary was possessed of an endowment amount- 
ing only to about fifty thousand dollars, together with a building 
for the accommodation of students, which contained no lecture- 
rooms, and was erected under a stipulation that it might be taken 



22 

at its appraised value by the Academical Department whenever 
that Department should need it. No pains had been taken for 
many years to increase the revenues of the institution. The habit 
of idly waiting for Heaven to bestow gifts of grace, had passed 
away with the advent of Dr. Taylor's theology, but the habit of 
waiting for Heaven to bring gifts of money without positive effort 
to procure them, was more slowly eradicated. Professor D wight 
had been chosen Assistant Professor of Sacred Literature in 1858, 
before the death of Professor Gibbs, and devoted himself to 
instruction in the New Testament. Although the youngest of 
the present corps of Professors, in the order of college graduation, he 
is our senior in the order of service in the Seminary, and was the 
link connecting the old Faculty with the new.* The interval 
that elapsed between his appointment and the erection of the new 
Divinity Hall was a period of labor, of renewed organization, — an 
interval of alternating hope and fear. It was impossible to appoint 
a successor to Dr. Taylor, because the income of the chair was so 
small. Professor (now President) Porter gave the lectures in 
Systematic Theology from 1858 to 1866. We remember with 
gratitude the friends that aided us in the early part of the inter- 
val which I have defined, when the prospects of the institution 
were sometimes dark and doubtful. At that time a gentleman of 
the highest character, whose name commanded respect throughout 
the State, actuated solely by his conviction of the importance of 
sustaining the School of Theology in Yale College, came forward 
with a gift of twenty-five thousand dollars ; and this in addition 
to other large donations which he had previously made to the institu- 
tion. At this time of returning prosperity, and on this commemo- 
rative occasion, it affords me great pleasure to acknowledge the 
debt of thankfulness that we owe to William A. Buckingham. In 
September, 1861, Professor Dwight was reinforced by the appoint- 
ment of Professor Hoppin to the chair of Homiletics and Pastoral 
Theology, and I was made Professor of Ecclesiastical History. 
Mr. Henry H. Hadley was elected Professor of Hebrew ; but he 
held the place but one year, and his early death, in 1864, deprived 
the country of a scholar of rare ability and promise. For several 

* The author of this discourse did not feel at hberty to enter into a statement of 
the services of his colleagues, who have been associated with him in office since 
the organization of the new Faculty : but, in giving to this discourse a permanent 
form, he cannot refrain from referring, in the briefest manner, to what the institution 
owes to the wise counsels, the assiduous and efficient labors, and the persona] 
liberality of Professor Dwight, through all the period of his connection with it. 



23 

years Professors Dwight, Iloppin and myself, with the valuable 
assistance of Mr. Van Name, in Hebrew, constituted the faculty. 
The number of students was not large, but they were generally 
good students, whom it was agreeable to teach ; and these were 
valuable years to the Professors from the opportunity that they 
gave us for study. 

In 1866 Professor Day accepted the Professorship of Hebrew 
and Biblical Theology. He brought to us the benefit of his large 
experience as a theological instructor in another Seminary, and 
in addition to his work in his own department, he has contributed 
efficiently to the better organization of the School and to the 
advancement of its general interests. The Reference Library, 
for example, a peculiar and useful feature in this institution, was 
first suggested by him. At this time, also, Dr. Bacon, who had 
relinquished his connection with the First Church as their active 
Pastor, joined us as an instructor in the Seminary, and entered upon 
a new stadium in his long career of useful service to the cause of 
learning and religion. The First Church, that had given us Dr. 
Taylor, gave us also his successor ; not in his youth, indeed, but 
in the maturity of his powers, with his well-earned reputation, 
and with a vigor, cheerfulness and hopeful spirit which any young 
man might reasonably envy ; with a helpful spirit, too, and with 
a willingness for every useful undertaking, to which his colleagues 
can all thankfully testify. The chair of Doctrinal Theology was 
not yet permanently filled ; but by the singular favor of Provi- 
dence we have been able to bring to it a gentleman, whom we had 
called to this post once before without success, and who more than 
satisfies every just expectation.* The necessity for a new build- 
ing that should contain lecture-rooms, as well as rooms for 
students, a building that should stand apart from the buildings 
of the undergraduate department, yet on a comely site and within 
a convenient distance of the College Library, was felt by the 
Professors of the new Faculty from the first. The call from the 
Academical Department for the old building, first that it might 
be occupied by the college students, and then later that it might 
be razed to the ground to make room for Durfee Hall, was an 
additional and pressing incentive to hasten forward the accom- 
plishment of our project. Arrangements were made as early as 
1866 to solicit subscriptions, but the Professors did not enter 

* The Rev. Samuel Harris, D.D., LL.D., formerly President of Bowdoin Col- 
lege, Maine. 



24 

personally into the effort to any great extent until some time 
afterward. The undertaking was successful, and the corner-stone 
of the new building was laid on the 22d of September, 1869. It 
was finished and ready for occupancy in September of the follow- 
ing year. Since that time, by the munificence of Mr. Frederick 
Marquand, of Southport, Conn., we have been able to connect 
with it the beautiful chapel which bears his name. Other dona- 
tions have been made, from time to time, to the funds of the 
Seminary, the largest of which is the bequest of |50,000 from 
that most liberal benefactor of Yale College, Mr. Augustus R. 
Street. 

It would be a shame if in some things we had not improved on 
the past. If we compare the Seminary with what it was twenty 
or thirty years ago, it is obvious that there is now far more Biblical 
and historical study. Indeed, the study of church history was 
then omitted. The course is n6w much more symmetrical and 
complete. The intellectual activity of the students is not, as then, 
almost exclusively in the direction of dogmatic theology. Their 
thoughts and studies do not run in one groove. The aspects of 
theology that chiefly engage attention have changed. The question 
of the foundation of moral obligation, of the divine permission of 
sin, of natural and moral ability, are no longer the exciting topics 
of discussion. These old questions are important. The wheel will 
revolve, and they will again emerge into prominence. But now, 
in the Seminary, as abroad in the world, the relation of religion to 
the discoveries and conjectures of natural and historical science, 
the miraculous life and person of Christ, and his work among men 
and for them, are the most attractive themes. I do not believe 
that there is less of religious consecration among the students than 
formerly was the case. There is an equal interest in missions 
foreign and domestic, equal sobriety in character and conduct, and 
an equal attachment to evangelical truth. 

And here permit me to say, that although we, like our fathers, 
are Congregation alists, we are not sectarians. Yale College was 
founded by religious men for religious ends. It has been the first 
aim and prayer of the eminent men who in past times have held 
its offices of goverment and instruction, that the principles of the 
Gospel of Christ should be inculcated here, and the spirit of a liv- 
ing faith in the verities of revealed religion should prevail among 
teachers and pupils. But there has not been, in modern times at 
least, anything that can justly be called a sectarian feeling. Such 



25 

a feeling does not exist in this School of Theology. I can affirai 
with truth that a proselyting spirit is wholly foreign to tlie place. 
No instructor in Yale College, in any of its departments, not even 
in the theological, ever thinks of trying to convert a Methodist 
into a Congregationalist, or an Episcopalian into a Congregation- 
alist, or to alter the denominational relation of anybody. No at- 
tempt, direct or circuitous, is ever made for such an end. Sectarian, 
proselyting efforts would be felt by all to be wholly at war with 
the ge)dus loci. We have a right to declare, then, that, considering 
the history of the College, who imparted to it the principles that 
have given it success, and the generous, truly Christian spirit in 
which it has been managed, its guardians would be unfaithful to 
the charge that has been transmitted to them, if they turned their 
backs on religion, or if, out of complaisance to a spurious and 
treacherous notion of catholicity, they were to allow a sectarian, 
proselyting tendency to gain a foothold within these ancient walls, 
where it would labor to subvert the true Christian liberality that 
has marked the admininistration of the college. 

In casting the eye backward over the history of the College, 
we are struck with the wise and providential development of theo- 
logical education in the successive periods. A College was estab- 
lished ; but, as the education of ministers was the principal end 
in view, theological studies were incorporated in a larger measure 
than was requisite for the liberal education of laymen, so that can- 
didates for the ministry might be furnished with a stock of profes- 
sional knowledge to prepare them for their specific work. But the 
two ends in view were not wholly compatible ; and the first new 
step was to push over theological studies, in part, into a post- 
graduate course, under the charge of the Professor of Divinity, — 
a course meagre when compared with the demands of the present 
day, but sufiicient for that time. As the circle of liberal studies 
was enlarged, while the standard of ministerial training was pro- 
portionately advanced, the post-graduate instruction in Theology 
grew into a distinct Department, organized under a faculty of its 
own; a Department separately managed and with a separate 
treasury. The Corporation, the successors of the original found- 
ers, considered that they were fulfilling their trust, if they offered 
to candidates for the ministry a course of liberal studies in the 
Academical Department of the College, while they connected with 
it, and took under their fostering care, a Department of Theology. 
The development of the university system at Yale has been a nat- 



26 

ural one, and not the result of much contrivance ; but we have 
reason to congratulate ourselves upon the course which things 
have taken. In the University of Paris, which was the model and 
mother of universities, the Faculty of Theology arose in connection 
with and by the side of the Faculty of Arts. There theology was 
finally concentrated in a college of its own, for the Theological 
Faculty was nearly identical with the Sorbonne. We can not, and 
ought not, in this country, to follow, in all points, the system of 
any of the continental universities. On the other hand, we have 
a great advantage at Yale, as regards the method and system of 
studies, over the English Universities, where the professional fa- 
culties never acquired a corporate being, and where theological 
science has declined and languished, because it has had no proper 
organization, but has been shut up for the most part within the 
colleges, and has therefore, in modern times, been reduced within 
a narrow compass. We rejoice that a School of Science has grown 
up at the side of the professional schools of Yale College. If there 
be in some quarters a fear and jealousy of the natural sciences, let 
me say that we do not partake of it. We rejoice in the pro- 
gress of discovery and in the diffusion of knowledge, for we 
believe that the tendencies of knowledge, in the long run, are 
favorable to religion. We believe that there is an infinite power 
of inspiration and salvation in the Bible, which was put into it 
by the Divine Author of the soul, and an infinite value in the 
religion of Christ, an absolute necessity for it, too, in human na- 
ture ; so that we have no fear that any astronomer with his 
eye-glass, or any geologist with his hoe and hammer, or any 
anatomist with his microscope, will hurt Christianity in any 
vital part. 

In reviewing the history of the College, which I had occasion to 
investigate a number of years ago, and in going back to the early 
days of New England, I have been impressed anew with the real 
worth and greatness of our ancestors. They had their faults like 
all other men ; but their faults were mostly due to the fact that 
they were born in the sixteenth or seventeenth instead of the 
nineteenth century,— a circumstance for which they can hardl}^ be 
held responsible. They were stout-hearted men, with a strong and 
living faith, that imparted dignity and elevation to their character; 
men who believed that the soul is the one exalted and precious 
thing in man, and who therefore set education and religion above 
all the good things of life. The fathers of New England belonged 



27 

to that race of men who saved the religion of England from the 
Papacy and the liberty of England from regal despotism ; Avho 
braved the Tudors at the height of their power, and, at a later 
day brought one faithless king of the House of Stuart to the 
block, and drove another from his throne. They were the men 
who, for the sake of truth that was dearer to them than home or 
life, left Old England, crossed the ocean, not then, as now, traversed 
by swiftly sailing, vessels, but a pathless, untraveled waste, to 
make here a N"ew England, and on these lonely shores, 

" — rolled the psalm to wintry skies." 

They were the men who, when they had to go out to till their 
fields with a weapon in one hand to keep off marauding savages, 
established out of their scanty substance a College, and laid the 
broad foundations of our educational system. We have no apol- 
ogies to make for our ancestors; "s^ quoeris nionumentum^ cir- 
cwinspicey 

I have been, also, impressed anew with the worth of the men 
who have conducted the affairs of Yale College, not in the distant 
past alone, but within a more recent period. There are facilities 
at present, there are some avenues of culture, which may not have 
been open to them. But the generation that is now entering on 
the stage of action, it is sad to think, cannot know how admirable 
were the characters and attainments of some of those who 
have gone from us. How little do the students of to-day know 
of the late Professor Kingsley, a scholar and a critic who has had 
few to equal him in America ; whose learning was so wide and ac- 
curate, and of whose keen wit more than one careless writer, liter- 
ary charlatan, or defamer of the College, felt the sting ! How little 
do they know of the late Professor Silliman, a man of so benig- 
nant character and gracious manners, whose scientific reputation 
attracted students to his place from every part of the country ! 
How little can they know of the intellectual power of Doctors 
Taylor and Fitch, when these were prominent before the public, 
— of the powerful impression made by their sermons and of the 
charm of their conversation ! 

Yale College has been a great seat of theology from the begin- 
ning. The authors of what is known as New England divinity, 
Edwards, Bellamy, Hopkins, West, Smalley, Emmons, Dwight, to 
whom the name of Taylor must now be added, went forth from 
Yale. The younger President Edwards, the only one of the lead- 
ing expounders of the New England Theology who was educated 



28 

elsewhere, was graduated at Princeton College, because his father 
had been made president of that institution. But the younger 
Edw^ards became a pastor in 'New Haven. The elder President 
lived to hold his office at Princeton only thirty-four days. He has 
a tranquil and honorable resting-place under the shadow of Nassau 
Hall, among those who revere his memory. Yet he was a New 
England man by birth and education, a son of Yale College ; he 
studied theology here, was converted here, and taught here as a 
tutor ; and I am inclined to think that had he lived in these days 
of easy and swift conveyance, he would have given a command- 
ment respecting his bones like that which Joseph gave to his 
brethren. The most of what is distinctive in American theology 
may be traced to this body of men. The two persons who, regarded 
as theologians, have had, on the whole, the highest place in recent 
times in England, Chalmers and Andrew Fuller, acknowledge that 
they were taught their science by President Edwards. I have 
already adverted to the currency which the system of D wight has 
had in Great Britain. It has been extensively read and followed 
both in the established church and among the dissenting bodies. 
I must not omit to remind you that not a few of the ministers who 
were educated here became themselves the founders of colleges, 
or leading officers in them, in various States of the Union. Eleazar 
Wheelock, a graduate of the class of 1733, having conducted for 
many years a school for Indians at Lebanon, made his way into 
the forests of New Hampshire, and in 1770 founded Dartmouth 
College. Williams College was organized under the auspices of 
Ebenezer Fitch, its first president, who graduated at Yale in 1777. 
Not Dartmouth and Williams only, but many other Colleges in 
the South and West bear a like filial relation to Yale and to its 
clerical alumni. 

The Yale School of Theology discharges a two-fold office ; it 
stands in a double relation. It is, first, a part of the University. 
Even disbelievers in revealed religion might concede that since 
Christianity fills so vast a space in history, in literature and in the 
structure of society, the interpretation of its primitive documents, 
and the study of its origin, progress and character, deserve a place 
in a University system. But Christianity is a historical, authori- 
tatively revealed religion, which holds an intimate relation to the 
intuitions of the human mind, to ethical motives and obligations, 
to the whole fabric of political and social life. On this ground, 
theology is a science, and has a place of honor, not by allowance, 
but by right, in the circle of studies. The School of Theology, 



29 

secondly, has a relation to the churches. Its function is to educate 
ministers who shall be competent to teach the Gospel to the people, 
and to guide the flock of Christ. This work is the direct, the 
noblest and most useful, ofiice which the School of Theology under- 
takes to fulfill. 

That ministers can best be prepared for their work in Seminaries 
of this character will be doubted by few if any. The old method 
of living for a while in the family of a minister, may have had 
some advantages of its own ; but even these are got in part through 
the experience in Sabbath schools and mission work, which most 
theological students now gain while prosecuting their studies. 
In truth, Bellamy, Burton, Emmons and other theological teachers 
of the former time, conducted Schools of Theology ; only they were 
very imperfectly equipped and organized. There was only one 
man to teach ; he taught hardly anything but dogmatic theology, 
and endeavored to stamp upon the mind of his pupil his own system. 
The method now in vogue is, in reality, that which has generally 
prevailed ever since the rise of universities. If there is to be a 
learned ministry, the existing method, in its main features, is in- 
dispensable. There is a vague, but false, impression among some, 
that schools of learninor are unfavorable to earnestness in relig-ion. 
A glance at history will show that this impression is not correct. 
Ignorance is the mother of superstition, but not of devotion, in the 
better sense. The universities of Europe in the 13th century 
were fountains of intellectual and spiritual life. They marked a 
transition from darker ages to a period of comparative light. In 
the 14th century, it was a Professor of Theology at Oxford, 
John Wickliffe, who taught a pure Gospel, rendered the Bible into 
English, and was the morning-star of the Reformation. In the 
15th century, it was a Professor of Theology at Prague, John 
Huss, who followed Wickliffe in rebuking the corruption of the 
Church, and laid down his life for the truth. In the 16th century, 
it was a Professor of Theology at Wittenberg, Martin Luther, who 
began the great movement that resulted in the restoration of prim- 
itive Christianity, after an eclipse of more than a thousand years. 
I might add that it was Ignatius Loyola and two associates, in a 
room of the College of St. Barbara at Paris, who laid the found- 
ations of the Jesuit order, which made itself felt throughout the 
world. In the 1 8th century, it was a band of students at Oxford, 
Wesley and his companions, who set on foot a reformation, which, 
for the English-speaking part of the world, was only second in 
importance to that commenced by Luther. In the present century. 



30 

it was a handful of students at Williams College, stopping to pray- 
together "by the side of a hay- stack, that gave rise to one of the 
noblest and most conspicuous achievements of American Christi- 
anity, the Missions of the American Board. But there is no need 
of vindicating the method of theological education which is now 
so generally sanctioned, and which lies at the foundation of the 
Divinity School of Yale College. 

The practical question for the friends of the Seminary is, whether 
the work of providing it with a sufficient endowment shall be 
left half-done. This work has been auspiciously begun, but is only 
half accomplished. There is room to-day for congratulation ; there 
is a call for thanksgiving; the omens are favorable. But if we 
stop where we are, we shall fall far short of our duty and of our 
opportunity. If the tide is not taken at its flood, there is no other 
prospect but that of being bound in shallows and in miseries. We 
need the means of aiding poor students who love the Gospel and 
wish to learn to preach it. The chairs of instruction are only half 
endowed; and should they become vacant, it would be exceedingly 
difficult, on this account, to fill them. And there is an immediate 
want, of so pressing a nature, that unless it can be supplied, the 
Seminary will be debarred from any further growth. Oar present 
building is full to overflowing. We require at once another build- 
ing " like unto it," to contain study-rooms and bed-rooms for 
students. The chapel, the libraries, the corps of professors, in 
a word, the whole apparatus of instruction, is sufficient for 
twice or thrice the number of pupils that we now have, if 
only lodgings can be provided for them. The large invest- 
ment already made will furnish a double yield, in case this want 
can be speedily met. If it is not met, the institution will be 
cramped and crippled; its growth will be stopped; and not 
to grow is probably to decline. While we gratefully com- 
memorate the services to religion, in connection with this in- 
stitution, which were rendered by Dwight, father and son, by 
Taylor, Goodrich and others of a preceding generation, let not the 
graduates of the Seminary and the laymen in our churches be be- 
hind them in a willingness to give their exertions and their means 
to the same good cause. Why not signalize the beginning of the 
administration of President Porter, himself an honored alumnus 
of this School, by the erection of this edifice which we imperatively 
require, and by the consecration of it to Christ and to the benefit 
of His Church ? Let this epoch be not only an occasion for a 
review of the past, but a starting-point for a new era of even 
higher achievement in the half-century to come ! 



31 



SPECIAL ^[EETIXG OF THE ALUMNI: ORGANIZATION AND LIST OF THOSE 

PRESENT, 

Oa Thursday the Alumni and invited guests met in the recently 
erected Marquand Chapel of the Divinity School, and spent both 
parts of the day in listening to papers and addresses. The meet- 
ing was called to order by Prof George E. Day (class of 1838), 
Secretary of the Alumni, and was organized by the appointment 
of Rev. Wm. I Budington, D.D. (class of 1838), of Brooklyn, 
N". Y., as Chairman, and Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy (class of 
1841), of Boston, Mass., as Assistant Secretary. After the singing 
of a hymn, followed by prayer by Rev. Theodore D. Woolsey, 
D.D., late President of Yale College (class of 1826), a list of the 
Alumni and others present was made as follows : 

Of the first class, 1822-1825, consisting of eight members, all 
of whom are living, with the exception of one who died shortly 
after leaving the Seminary, Rev. Seth Bliss, Berlin, Rev. Josiah 
Brewer, Stockbridge, Mass., Rev. Joshua Leavitt, D.D., New 
York, Rev. Charles Nichols, New Britain. 

Class of 1826, Rev. Theodore D. Woolsey, D.D., New Haven. 

Class of 1827, Rev. E. Goodrich Smith, Washington, D. C. 

Class of 1828, Rev. H. P. Arms, D.D., Norwich, Rev. Henry 
Herrick, North Woodstock, Rev. Sanford Lawton, Longmeadow, 
Mass., Rev. Dennis Piatt, South Norwalk, Rev. Samuel Rockwell, 
New Britain, Rev. Stephen Topliff, Cromwell. 

Class of 1829, Rev. John P. Cowles, Ipswich, Mass., Rev. 
Stephen Hubbell, Long Ridge, Rev. W. H. Whittemore, Brook- 
lyn, N. Y. 

Class of 1830, Rev. Abraham C. Baldwin, Hartford, Rev. 
Samuel Howe, Bricksburg, N. J., Rev. George J. Tillotson, 
Central Village, Plainfield. 

Class of 1831, Rev. Charles P. Grosvenor, West Woodstock, 
Rev. Mason Grosvenor, Cincinnati, O., Rev. William Whittlesey, 
New Haven. 

Class of 1832, Rev. F. W. Chapman, Rocky Hill, Rev. Joseph 
Eldridge, D.D., Norfolk, Rev. Edwin R. Gilbert, Wallingford, 
Rev. Piatt T. Holly, Bridgeport. 

Class of 1833, Rev. S. B. Morley, Pittsfield, Mass. 

Class of 1834, Rev. Oliver E. Daggett, D.D., New London, 
Rev. Henry N. Day, D.D., New Haven, Rev. Leverett Griggs, 
D.D., Bristol, Rev. and Hon. Peter Parker, Washington, D. C. 



82 

Class op 1835, Prof. Lyman H. Atwater, D.D., Princeton, N. 
J., Rev. Charles Jones, Saxonville, Mass., Rev. D wight M. Seward, 
D.D., I^ew York City, Rev. Rollin S. Stone, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Class of 1836, Rev. Samuel G. Buckingham, D.D., Springfield, 
Mass., Rev. Noah Porter, D.D., Yale College, Prof. Edward E. 
Salisbury, LL.D., ISTew Haven. 

Class of 1837, Rev. Davis S. Brainerd, Lyme, Rev. Erastus 
Colton, New Haven, Rev. Henry B. Eldred, Kinsman, O., Rev. T. 
K. Fessenden, Farmington. 

Class of 1838, Rev. Wm. L Budington, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y., 
Prof. George E. Day, Yale College, Rev. B. W. Dwight, LL.D., 
Clinton, N. Y., Rev. Alfred E. Ives, Castine, Me., Rev. George A. 
Oviatt, Talcottville, Rev. Aaron Snow, Miller's Place, L. I., Rev. 
George L Wood, Ellington. 

Class of 1839, Rev. John Churchill, Woodbury, Rev. Eli B. 
Clark, Chicopee, Mass. 

Class of 1840, Rev. Edward E. Atwater, New Haven, Rev. 
Charles P. Bush, D.D., New York City, Rev. Amos S. Chese- 
brough, Yernon, Rev. David B. Coe, D.D., New York City, Rev. 
Edgar J. Doolittle, Wallingford, Walter T. Hatch, Brooklyn, N. 
Y., Rev. Leander S. Hob art, New York City, Rev. O. F. Parker, 
Haddam, Prof. Thomas A. Thacher, Yale College. 

Class of 1841, Rev. A. C. Frissell, New York City, Rev. E. 
Edward Hall, Fair Haven, Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy, Boston, 
Mass. 

Class of 1842, John T. Andrew, South Cornwall, Prof. Chester 
S. Lyman, Yale College, Rev. F. T. Perkins, Hartford, Rev. Owen 
Street, Lowell, Mass., Rev. I. P. Warren, D.D., Boston, Mass. 

Class of 1843, James Cowles, Rye, N. Y., Rev. Edward S. 
Dwight, Hadley, Mass., Rev. N. H. Eggleston, Enfield, Rev. Wm. 
A. Houghton, Berlin, Mass., Rev. Horace James, Greenwich, Rev. 
Theodore A. Leete, Thorndike (Palmer), Mass., Rev, Loring B. 
Marsh, Huntington, Rev. Lavalette Perrin, D.D., Wolcottville. 

Class of 1844, Rev. S. W. Barnum, New Haven, Rev. Henry 
Cooley, Springfield, Mass., Rev. S. J. M. Merwin, Wilton, Rev. I. 
N. Tarbox, D.D., Boston, Mass. 

Class of 1845, Rev. Wm. H. Gilbert, Hartford, Rev. Alexander 
MacWhorter, New Haven. 

Class pf 1846, Rev. W. W. Belden, Bristol, Rev. Henry M. 
Goodwin, Rockford, 111., Prof. James Hadley, Yale College, Rev. 
Wm. H. Moore, Berlin. 



33 

Class of 1847, Rev. W. W. Atterbury, New York City, Rev. 
F. D. Avery, Columbia, Rev. John Avery, Lebanon, Rev. Gordon 
Hall, D.D., Northampton, Mass., Wm. L. Kingsley, New Haven, 
Rev. S. Dryden Phelps, D.D., New Haven, Rev. Robert P. 
Stanton, Greenville. 

Class of 1848, Rev. Guy B. Day, Bridgeport, Rev. Edward W. 
Gilman, New^ York City, Rev. Wm. J. Jennings, North Coventry, 
Rev. Wm. T. Reynolds, North Haven, Prof. Moses C. White, 
M.D., Yale College. 

Class of 1849, Rev. George E. Hill, Southport, Rev. George 
A. Howard, D.D., Catskill, N. Y., Rev. Burritt A. Smith, East 
Hampton, Orson W. Stow, Plantsville, Rev. Samuel G. Willard, 
Colchester. 

Class of 1850, W. W. Chapman, New Haven, Rev. Edwin 
Johnson, Bridgeport, Allyn S. Kellogg, Vernon, Rev. Sylvanus P. 
Marvin, Woodbridge, Rev. B. Pilsbury, Middletown. 

Class of 1851, Rev. Charles H. Bullard, Hartford, Prof. George 
P. Fisher, Yale College. 

Class of 1852, Rev. Joseph W. Backus, Thomaston, 

Class of 1853, Rev. Wm. B. Clarke, Dorchester, Mass., Prof. 
Timothy Dwight, Yale College, Rev. John A. Woodhull, New 
Preston. 

Class of 1854, Rev. Stephen Fenn, Vernon, Rev. Salmon 
McCall, East Haddam. 

Class of 1855, Rev. Willis S. Colton, Washington, Rev. J. L. 
Jenkins, Amherst, Mass., Rev. John L. Tomlinson, Simsbury. 

Class of 1857, Rev. James L. Whiton, Lynn, Mass. 

Class of 1858, Rev. Moses C. Welch, Mansfield. 

Class of 1859, Rev. John Anketell, New Haven. 

Class of 186 J, Rev. George B. Bacon, D.D., Orange, N. J., 
Rev. E. L. Heermance, New Haven. 

Class of 1862, Rev. Wm. M. Gay, Cummington, Mass., Rev.. 
Henry Upson, New Preston. 

Class of 1863, Rev. Wm. K. Hall, Stratford. 

Class of 1864, Rev. Wm. H. Rice, York, Pa. 

Class of 1865, Henry N, Johnson, New Haven, David J.. 
Ogden, New Haven. 

Class of 1866, Rev. George W. Banks, Bethlehem. 

Class of 1867, Rev. John B. Doolittle, Hartland, Rev. C. L. 
Kitchell, Guilford. 
3 



34 

Class of 1868, Rev. George S. Dickerman, West Haven, Rev. 
Rufus P. Hibbard, Kew Haven, Rev. H. G. Marshall, Milford, 
Rev. S. S. Martyn, Kew Hartford. 

Class of 1869, Rev. John W. Beach, Windsor Locks, Rev. 
Henry B. Mead, Terryville. 

Class of 1870, Anselm B, Brown, New Haven, Joseph W. 
Hartshorn, New Haven, Rev. James F. Merriam, Farraington, 
Rev. J. H. Vorce, South Meriden. 

Class of 1871, Theodore L. Day, Yale College, Rev. John K. 
H. DeForest, Mt. Carmel, Rev. Charles W. Drake, Wapping, 
Rev. Edward P. Herrick, Middle Haddam, Rev. David E. Jones, 
Roxbury, Rev. James B. Tyler, Groton. 

Honorary alumni and invited guests: Rev. Leonard Bacon, 
D.D., Yale' College, Prof. James M. Hoppin, D.D., Yale College, 
Samuel Holmes, Montclair, N. J., Rev. Wm. M. Taylor, D.D., ISTew 
York City, Rev. Wm. C. Fowler, LL.D., Durham, Rev. Charles 
Jones, Bridgeport, Rev. H. M. Storrs, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y., 
J. B. Beadle, Montclair, N. J., Rev. Henry B. Ensworth, Philadel- 
phia, Pa., Rev. George L. Walker, D.D., New Haven, Rev. Wm. 
Booth, Preston, Eng., Rev. Samuel Dunham, Norwalk, Rev. O. H. 
White, D.D., New Haven, Rev. Hubbard Beebe, New Haven, Rev. 
Homer N. Dunning, South Norwalk, Rev. S. Hine, Higganum, 
Rev. Gowen C. Wilson, Windsor, Ct., Rev. David Murdock, D.D., 
New Haven, Rev. Luther Keene, Franklin, Mass., Rev. L. H. 
Cone, Springfield, Mass., Rev. A. C. Adams, Wethersfield, Rev. 
James W. Hubbell, New Haven, Rev. John M. Wolcott, Cheshire, 
Rev. L. N. Hallock, Berlin, Rev. E. B. Sanford, Thomaston, Rev. 
George C. Booth, Detroit, Mich., Rev. Henry M. Elliot, Litchfield, 
Rev. David Robb, Coleraine, L'eland, Rev. W. W. Andrews, 
Wethersfield, and many others who failed to report their names. 

Numerous letters were also received from former members of 
the Seminary, who were unable to be present, expressing their 
warm interest in its prosperity and their sense of obligation to 
their deceased instructors. 

It was hoped that the General Catalogue of the Seminary, con- 
taining a brief biographical record of its members from the be- 
ginning, which has been for some time in preparation, would be 
ready in season for the Anniversary, but unavoidable hindrances 
rendered this impossible. It is now expected to be issued in the 
autumn. 



85 

Progress of the Seminary during the tear. 

Instead of the obituary record and extended account of the 
events of the Seminary year, usually presented at the annual 
meetings of the alumni, Professor Day made the following brief 
statement of the chief matters of interest which have occurred since 
the last anniversary. 

On the 10th of October last, Rev. Samuel Harris, D.D., late 
President of Bowdoin College, whose acceptance of the professor- 
ship which has been only provisionally filled since the death of 
Dr. Taylor was so warmly welcomed at the last anniversary by the 
alumni and friends of the Seminary, was inaugurated in the Centre 
Church as Professor of Systematic Theology. The address de- 
livered by him on that occasion, entitled "The Theological 
Department essential to a University," was listened to with much 
interest, and has since been published. 

Shortly after this, the Marquand Chapel was dedicated with 
appropriate services. At our meeting a year since, it was stated 
that the sum of $21,550 had been given by the liberal friend of 
the Seminary whose name it now bears, Frederick Marquand, 
Esq., of Southport, Conn., for the erection of a small but elegant 
building, connected with the main edifice, to be especially devoted 
to the religious services and more general exercises of the Seminary, 
such as the daily morning prayers and other devotional meetings, 
the missionary concert, the rhetorical exercises of the School and 
the delivery of the special courses of lectures, to all the classes, 
on subjects not included in the regular Seminary course. We 
have now the pleasure of adding, that when the chapel was nearly 
completed, Mr. Marquand assumed the further expense of carpet- 
ing, cushions, chairs, gas fixtures, apparatus for heating, etc., 
amounting to 85,684, making his entire donotion $27,234. While 
the simple elegance and architectual beauty of the building and 
its appointments are all that could be desired, its serviceableness to 
the Seminary exceeds our expectations. Indeed, with the increas- 
ing number of students in the school, we should be greatly em- 
barrassed without it. It will interest many of the graduates and 
friends of the College to learn, since it fitly represents the bond 
which connects the Academical and Theological Departments, that 
the weekly meetings of the College Church have been held, the 
year past, in this chapel. 

The alumni, by a formal vote, have already expressed their thanks 
to the generous donor, and henceforth, as from year to year they 



S6 

assemble in these annual gatherings, and behold this memorial of 
his interest in the work to which they have devoted their lives, 
they will ever feel how closely he has associated himself with them 
in the fellowship of labor for a common cause. In this great gift, 
our friend and benefactor has also tenderly associated the memory 
of his deceased wife, whose name and the date of her decease — 
Hetty Perry Marquand, died 1859 — are inscribed on a simple 
marble slab, against the west wall of the building. 

Mr. Ferdinand D. Beebe, of East Bloomfield, N. Y., has pre- 
sented to the Seminary, entirely without solicitation, a superior 
cabinet-organ for use in the chapel ; Rev. E. L. Heermance, of the 
class of 1861, seventy-five copies of the " Songs of the Sanctuary ;" 
and Dea. Atwater Treat, a fine pulpit Bible. Some unknown 
friend has also placed in the several pews copies of Thomas a 
Kempis' " Imitation of Christ," and other choice devotional 
works for the use of the students while waiting for the services to 
commence. 

The most interesting bequest which perhaps the Seminary has 
ever received, has come within a few months from Mrs. Mary 
Ann Goodman, a colored woman of this city, who died a few 
months since, and whose property is estimated at between four and 
five thousand dollars. Although born and reared in humble cir- 
cumstances, and earning her living by hard labor at domestic ser- 
vice and in other ways, she felt that the time had come when the 
people of her own color needed a more highly educated ministry, 
and having no near relative to provide for, she decided to be- 
queath her entire property for the increase of the scholarship fund 
of this Seminary, the income of it to be used in aiding young 
men of color pursLiing their studies here in preparation for the 
ministry, with the provision, however, that if at any time there 
should be none such in the School, the income might be used in 
aid of other students. A graduate of Lincoln University who 
has taken a high position in his class as a scholar, has already 
made application to be placed upon this foundation, and others 
will undoubtedly be incited to make the preparation necessary 
to enter the Seminary. 

The Trowbridge Reference Library has been enriched by the 
addition of the most important theological works issued the last 
year in the United States and Great Britain, and also the leading 
theological quarterlies of the various denominations in these two 
countries. In addition to ,the large number of volumes previously 



37 

placed in this library by Rev. E. Goodrich Smith, in the expecta- 
tion that they will ultimately become the property of the Semin- 
ary, he has sent about 250 valuable works since the last Anniver- 
sary. Valuable donations of books have also been made by Rev. 
Dr, Patton, Rev. Seth Bliss and others. Among these the copy 
of Cruden's Concordance owned and used by the eminent theolo- 
gian President Edwards, presented by his descendant, Rev. Tryon 
Edwards, D.D., is of special interest. A desk and book case 
formerly belonging to President Edwards has also been given by 
the widow of Rev. Pitkin Cowles of Canaan, Ct, 

A new feature of interest in the Trowbridge Library room, pecu- 
liarly appropriate as meeting the alumni at the completion of the 
first half century of the existence of the Seminary, is the portraits 
of the deceased professors, whose memory they will ever hold in 
honor. That of Dr. Taylor was copied from the original painting 
and presented to the Seminary by his grand-daughter, Miss Rebecca 
Porter, daughter of President Porter; that of Dr. Fitch was pre- 
sented by his widow, now living in Newburyport, Mass. ; and that 
of Dr. Goodrich by his only surviving son. Rev. Wm. H. Good- 
rich, D.D., of Cleveland, O. The Library room has also been 
adorned by rare photograpic portaits of Savonarola and Erasmus, 
presented by Professor Weir. 

The first course of lectures on preaching by Rev. Henry Ward 
Beecher, on the " Lyman Beecher Lectureship," recently founded 
by the gift of $10,000 from Mr. Henry W. Sage, of Brooklyn, 
N. Y., has been delivered to a crowded audience of theological 
and academical students, ministers of the gospel and others, in 
the Marquand Chapel. They exerted a stimulating influence upon 
the members of the Seminary, and were listened to with marked 
interest and profit. Arrangements have been made to give them 
to the public through the press. 

The number of students in the Seminary still continues to 
increase. In the year now closed the whole number was seventy- 
one, of whom four were Resident Licentiates, twelve in the Senior, 
twenty-three in the Middle and thirty-two in the Junior Class. 

From this brief record of the fiftieth year of the Seminary, its 
alumni and friends will see how much they have to encourage 
them in the effort to build up in the midst of this group of institu- 
tions a strong school of Sacred Learning, the influence of which 
for Christ and his Church shall be felt in every department of the 
University, and upon our land and the world. 



38 



YALE THI'OLOGICAL SEMINARY AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

The following biographical sketch of the Foreign Missionaries 
who were once students in this School, was then read by Rev. 
Charles P. Bush, D.D. (Class of 1840), Dist. Sec. of the A. B. C. 
F. M. in New York City. 

The annals of the Seminary give us about eight hundred and 
fifty names of young men who have pursued their theological stud- 
ies in this institution. Of this number it is found that thirty-one 
have been Foreign Missionaries ; of whom fourteen are dead, nine 
have relinquished the work, and only eight are still in the field. 

So far, the facts are not exhilarating. And yet this brief list 
contains some of the best names in all the annals of the mission- 
ary enterprise. Indeed, it has been said that they make up in 
quality something, at least, of that which they lack in numbers. 
The superior worth, especially of some of them, will be recog- 
nized at once as we name them : — William Aitchison, Dyer Ball, 
Isaac G. Bliss, Henry Blodget, Cornelius B. Bradley, Josiah 
Brewer, James T. Dickinson, Benjamin Griswold, Lewis Grout, 
Henry A. Homes, Julius Y. Leonard, Charles Little, Jesse Lock- 
wood, William A. Macy, Samuel D. Marsh, William Mellen, Colby 
C. Mitchell, Peter Parker, John M. S. Perry, Isaac Pierson, Andrew 
T. Pratt, Chester N. Righter, Charles S. Sherman, William C. 
Shipman, Asa B. Smith, Azariah Smith, Edwin Stevens, David T. 
Stoddard, Albert A. Sturges, Moses C. White, and Samuel G. 
Whittlesey. With only three exceptions, these were all Mission- 
aries of the American Board. 

But something more than a mere roll-call will, of course, be 
expected at this time. And yet to give thirty-one biographies of 
thirty-one men of action is no small task for a single hour. We 
must necessarily confine ourselves to the merest sketches at the 
most, and can hardly do more than recall the names of some. 

We will speak, first, of those who have finished their course ; 
secondly, of those who, because of failure of health or for other 
reasons, have left the mission work ; and thirdly, of those who 
are still in the field. For the sake of convenience, we will take 
each class in alphabetical order. 



39 

/. The Deceased. 

Rev. William Aitchison (Class of 1851) was born in Scotland. 
His parents came with him to this country when he was but four 
years of age. His early advantages were very limited. At four- 
teen years of age he was working in a cotton factory in Greene- 
ville, in this State ; and yet he was studious, employing all his 
leisure moments in reading. He was converted by an oath, the 
first and the last, it is believed, which ever fell from his lips. He 
was frightened into repentance. He did not know before that he 
had such need of it. 

Encouraged by Christian friends, he undertook to study for the 
ministry. He prepared for college at the public schools of Green- 
ville, which were at the time among the very best in the State. 
He graduated at Yale College in 1848, taking the second honor of 
his class. He at once entered the Seminary, and here spent three 
years in theological studies, acting also as Tutor in the College 
during the last year of his course. He was licensed by the New 
Haven East Association, Aug. 5, 1850, and married to Miss Mary 
E. Andrew, daughter of Rev. Samuel R. Andrew, of this city, 
April 22, 1851. 

From that time his career is a striking illustration of the words 
of Scripture (Is. 42: 16), "I will bring the blind by a way that 
they knew not." In his youthful " Journal " he had recorded his 
solemn consecration of himself to missions. But the accomplished 
and devoted Christian lady to whom he was happily united in 
marriage had not health sufficient to warrant their going to the 
heathen. He thought himself shut up to a home pastorate. But 
none offered, such as his friends thought him worthy to fill. After 
casting about for a time, he engaged to preach for a year to a 
small congregation at Fitchville, in this State, there to wait for 
such an opening as he desired. 

In less than six months the invalid wife had finished her course ; 
and with her dying breath she whispered, " Now, William, you 
can be a missionary." But an infant child remained to his care — 
how should he provide for that ? Whilst he was debating this 
question. Providence again interposed ; the child was caught up 
to be with the mother ; and that too seemed to say, as it went, 
" Now you can be a missionary." There was no longer any ques- 
tion to be settled. He arrived at Shanghai, China, on the first 
day of September, 1854. He made rapid progress in the language. 
He preached his first sermon in Chinese in just one year after 



40 

reaching his station. He seemed peculiarly fitted for mission 
work in China, and endeared himself to all the missionaries and to 
the natives. He was in good health, a fine scholar, easy and 
agreeable in his manners, of devoted ]3iety and great earnestness. 
He soon came to be regarded by common consent as the most 
promising of all the younger missionaries in China. 

But his career was a brief one, and the same mysterious Provi- 
dence which had shaped his affairs in this country followed him to 
the last. He longed to be the first to plant the standard of the 
cross in Peking, the great capital of China. China, however, did not 
then permit missionaries to reside in Peking, or even to visit the 
imperial city. But Mr. Ward, our ambassador, was about to 
visit the capital, to exchange the ratified treaties with the Chi- 
nese Government, and Mr. Aitchison was invited to join the 
embassy as one of his interpreters. 

Most gladly he accepted the invitation, but fully intended to 
stay in Peking, if possible, as a missionary, when the business of 
the embassy was ended. The embassy was detained in the capi- 
tal about a fortnight ; but before that time was gone, Mr. Aitchi- 
son was taken ill ; and yet not seriously, it was at first sup- 
posed. He grew worse, however ; and when the embassy started 
on its return, it was necessary to remove him with the greatest 
care ; a part of the time carrying him in a sort of palanquin, 
borne by two mules ; and in that he breathed his last, as the caval- 
cade was slowly moving along, with no eye upon him but those of 
the angels who came to bear him to his home in heaven. 

His body was reverently borne to the coast, some thirty hours 
distant, with the intention of taking it back to Shanghai for burial 
in the mission cemetery ; but that was found to be impossible in 
the month of August ; and as there was no burial ground there, it 
was thought best to commit his body to the deep. He was buried 
with military honors from the deck of a Chinese steamer, on the 
18th of August, 1859. 

Singular and almost prophetic, if not a little morbid, were some 
lines written by him twelve years before, and published in the 
Yale Literary Magazine, entitled, " The Time to Die." We quote 
a few of the last verses. 

" Bury me not at the close of day, 
"When the twilight softly fades away, 
When a death-like stillness fills the air, 
And goodness kneels at the place of prayer. 



41 

" Be not the church-yard my place of rest, 
Let no hallowed dust fall on my breast ; 
Where sleep my fathers, let me not sleep ; 
May loved ones over my grave ne'er weep. 

" But let me die at the midnight hour, 
When winds howl loud, and dark clouds lower, 
With no friend near to close my fixed eye, 
Or bend his ear for my last faint sigh 

" Let no speaking marble mark the spot, 
Where 'neath the clods my body shall rot ; 
There let me rest from earth's toilsome strife. 
Till God shall wake me to endless life." 

Surely if these lines ever expressed his real wishes, they were 
at last realized, only that his body rests not beneath the clods of 
the valley, but beneath the waves of the Gulf of Pichili, far 
enough from kindred and friends. He died at thirty-three years 
of age, after having been only five years on mission ground. He 
left two little books prepared by him in the Chinese language, 
" A Scripture Geography," and an " Introduction to the Study of 
the Bible," which have since been published, and are now in use 
in the country, and are thought well calculated to do good. A 
memoir of Mr. Aitchison was published in 1864, entitled "Five 
Years in China," made up largely of his accurate and discrimina- 
ting observations in that land. And so, " he being dead, yet 
speaketh." 

Rev. Dyer Ball (Class of 1829) illustrates the pursuit of mis- 
sion work under difficulties. He was converted at nineteen years 
of age ; took his preparatory course at Phillips' Academy, spent 
two years in Yale College, went south to teach, and finally grad- 
uated at Union College, in 1826, when he was thirty years of age. 
He pursued his theological studies partly at Andover and partly 
at this Seminary, interrupted somewhat by the necessity of further 
teaching for his own support. He was ordained in 1831, when 
he was thirty-five years of age. He still taught, however, for 
several years, pursuing the study of medicine in the meantime, 
and finally got started for his mission in 1838, when he was forty- 
two years of age. And yet he became a valuable missionary, and 
lived to spend nearly twenty-eight years in the service, seven years 
at Singapore, and the rest of the time at Canton. He obtained a 
fair knowledge of the Chinese language ; was for a time connected 
with the press ; printed an Almanac in Chinese which was highly 
esteemed by the natives; kept a boarding school for a dozen 



42 

native youth ; did mucli also by his medical skill to relieve the 
sufferings of the people and thus gain a more ready access for the 
gospel. He was in fact one of the pioneers in China, a man of 
great gentleness and loveliness of character, possessing the pro- 
found regard of his brethren in the Mission, as well as the love 
and respect, in no common degree, of the natives. The latter 
called him in his declining years, " God's old servant who lives the 
gospel." He did what he could to the very last. When so feeble 
that he could scarcely move at all, he would slowly and patiently 
pick his way to his little chapel, which opened on the street, and, 
sitting in his arm-chair, he would hand out his tracts and his 
books to the people as they passed, and address a few words of 
exhortation to those who would pause long enough to hear. So he 
continued to do until utterly prostrated. He peacefully fell asleep 
on the 27th of March, 1866, at seventy years of age. 

In regard to his domestic relations, his wife died at Singapore 
six years after they went there. Two years later he was married 
again, to Miss Isabella Robertson, a Scotch lady, a missionary 
teacher in Canton. He visited this country, with his family, in 
1854; returned to China early in 1857. Two of his daughters, 
children of his first wife, married missionaries in China. His 
widow returned to her kindred and friends in Scotland. Her only 
son is now a young man, teaching near Liverpool, England. 

Rev. Benjamin Griswold (Class of 1841) was born in Ran- 
dolph, Yt., August 1 3, 1811. He graduated at Dartmouth College 
in 1837; studied theology partly in Andover and partly here, 
adding medicine and surgery as a part of his preparation for 
going to the heathen. He early consecrated himself to mission 
work ; and it is interesting to see how by a word only, spoken in 
season, the whole current of his life seemed to be turned in this 
direction. When asked how he came to think seriously of the 
subject, he said, "A good man, who came to my father's house to 
solicit aid for the missionary cause, remarked to me carelessly as 
he was leaving, ' I shall not ask you to give anything, for I hope 
you will give yourself " — and he did. 

He was one of the first band of missionaries at the Gaboon, 
West Africa, and he entered into the work with intense enthu- 
siasm and earnestness. His chief motto seemed to be, " Whatso- 
ever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." He showed 
something of his resolution before starting. He was engaged to 
be married to a lady in Hartford. Her outfit was ready, and the 
day of their marriage set. He left her to go to New York to 



43 

attend to some last things. A telegram followed, telling him of 
her sudden sickness and death. A letter was written to him by- 
one of the Secretaries of the American Board, expressing the 
deepest sympathy and condolence, and kindly asking if he would 
still go to Africa. He answered, " I go, Sir " — and he went. 

From first to 'last he acted with just such decision and prompt- 
ness. He went farther than any other missionary at that day in 
exploring Africa. He tried to reach the tribes of the interior, to 
see what openings there were for the gospel. But his race was a 
short one. Only about two years after reaching the Gaboon, he 
was called to the better country. He had just returned from an 
extended tour of observation, and was preparing for another and 
more extensive journey; but before recovering from the fatigue 
of his previous trip he was called up in the night to perform a 
surgical operation upon a poor native. The exposure brought on 
a fever, of which he died in a few days. His funeral was attended 
by a large concourse of natives, who had learned to respect and 
love him. One short year before, he had married the widow of 
Rev. Alexander E. Wilson, of the same mission; a help meet for a 
missionary. She continued in the work five years longer, and then 
she too was called to her rest. 

Rev. Jesse Lockwood (Class of 1833) has even a shorter his- 
tory. He seemed specially made for missionary work ; a native 
of North Salem, N. Y., and graduate of Williams College, a lovely, 
devoted Christian, always doing good. He reached his field of 
labor among the Cherokee Indians in January, 1834, and died in 
July of the same year, at thirty-one years of age — one year out of 
the Seminary, and six months on mission ground. His early 
death was a great disappointment to his fellow missionaries, for 
they cherished the highest hopes of his usefulness. 

Rev. William Allen Macy (Class of 1852) was a native of 
New York City, of excellent family connections, and possessed of 
a competence of this world's goods. He graduated at Yale College 
in 1844, and after spending a year in the study of theology at this 
Seminary, went to China as an assistant teacher for the Morrison 
Education Society at Hong Kong. The entire charge of the 
school soon devolved upon him, and he faithfully and acceptably 
fulfilled his trust until the year 1849, when the school was finally 
closed. Returning to the United States in 1850, he spent the next 
two years in this Seminary, was ordained to the ministry, and 
in 1855 returned to China as a missionary of the American Board 
at Canton. 



44 

He made rapid progress in the language, engaged heartily in 
mission work, and endeared himself to all the mission circle as a 
young man of admirable spirit and most excellent mental and moral 
furnishment. The war of the rebellion, however, which overran a 
large portion of Southern China, seriously interfered with mission- 
ary operations at Canton. The missionaries were driven, for a 
time, from the city. The houses of some of them were burned to 
the ground, Mr. Macy's among the rest. 

In this state of things, it was thought best for him to join 
the brethren at Shanghai; and here he was associated with his 
former acquaintance. Rev. William Aitchison ; and they together 
were planning to go still further north and start a new station. 
They hoped to be able to reach Peking, the capital. For this 
purpose, in the winter of 1858-9, they were studying the Mandarin 
dialect, and poring over the maps of the country, trying to find a 
way up through the interior. 

About this time he wrote several earnest and eloquent appeals 
to the young men of America to come to their help. He regarded 
the whole empire as virtually open to mission work ; four hundred 
millions of people mutely pleading for the bread of life. He wrote 
as in an agony of earnestness. He wrote as if doing his last work, 
as it proved he was. 

When his plans were almost matured for starting northward in 
early spring, he was suddenly taken sick with what proved to 
be malignant small-pox. He received every possible attention, 
but the disease moved steadily on, in eleven days, to its fatal 
conclusion. Like his beloved associate, Mr. Aitchison, he was 
just ready, as all supposed, for the highest usefulness, and his work 
was ended. There is no greater mystery than this. It would 
sorely try our faith, if we had not other and ample evidence that 
the Judge of all the earth does right. 

Mr. Macy went out unmarried, but had his widowed mother 
and a sister with him a part of the time, though with no charge 
upon the missionary funds. Indeed, he paid his own salary; but 
preferred to do it through the Board. In his will he gave $5,000, 
first to the use of some relatives in I^^ew York State, while they 
should live, and then to Yale College. 

Rev. Samuel D. Marsh (Class of 1847) was a native of Ware, 
Mass., born Nov. 28, 1817, graduated at Yale College in 1844, and 
at the Seminary in 1847. He began labor as a missionary among 
the Zulus of South Africa in January, 1848. His first business 
was to get a little of the language; then to open a new station in 



^5 

the wilderness ; and after nine months to " pitch his wagon," as 
he expressed it, in a new and better location. The name of his 
station was Itafamasi^ which means the Plain of Milk. There 
was plenty of milk there (for the Zulus had cattle), but not much 
honey. Things were about as rough and unpromising around 
him as they well could be. But here he gathered a little church, 
and lived and labored as a faithful missionary for about six years, 
and then his work was done. He died on the 11th of December, 
1853, at thirty-six years of age; and the Rev. Daniel Lindley, 
one of the veterans of that mission, bore the following testimony 
to his ability and worth : — 

" Our departed fi-iend was wise to plan and prompt to execute; 
courageous to undertake, and persevering till the end was accom- 
plished. He was true and faithful and loving and generous in all 
the relations and duties of life. Cheerful in manner, chaste in 
conversation, often amusing and often instructive, his society was 
always agreeable, and frequently a luxury. In our business meet- 
ings, his opinions were always heard vdth great respect ; and in 
our religious meetings, his words of exhortation, praise and prayer 
were our delight." It were worth going to Africa to attain to 
such excellencies. 

Rey. Colby C. Mitchell (Class of 1840) was a man of sincere, 
simple piety; destined to the Mountain Nestorians of Persia — but 
he never reached them. 

He was born in Groton, in this State, May 14, 1814; pursued 
his classical studies in New York State ; graduated at this Semi- 
nary in 1840; was ordained at New London in November of the 
same year ; was married to Eliza A. Richards, of this city, in Jan- 
uary, 1841, and sailed the same month, with others, for the East. 
They entered the Turkish Empire at Beirlit, and thence took their 
journey across the country. Mr. Mitchell had a slight touch of 
ague at Aleppo, which detained the party a few days. Still it 
was not late in the season ; they had a good guide, and traveled 
leisurely, reaching Mardin in safety and comfort on the 19th of 
June. On the plain below that city, Mr. Mitchell was exposed 
for a short time to the wet and cold in trying to save his tent 
from being blown down in a storm. This brought on another 
chill. A few days later he had another ; and then, without any 
sufficient apparent cause, he lost his reason and drooped and died 
after only two days of delirious suffering. 

Two days later Mrs. Mitchell was taken sick; and though they 
made out to reach Mosul with her, where she received all possible 



46 

attention, she too became delirious, and death followed in six 
days. 

Rev. Joh:n^ M. S. Peret (Class of 1831) was born in Sharon, 
Ct., Sept. 7, 1806, graduated at Yale College in 1827, arrived in 
Ceylon Sept. 24, 1835, and died March 10, 1838, after having been 
only two and a half years in the field. 

That terrible year, 1837, cut down the -contributions to the Amer- 
ican Board, so that the appropriations to the Ceylon Mission were 
greatly reduced, in consequence of which they were compelled to 
disband a great number of their schools, which almost broke the 
hearts of the missionaries. Ten days before his death, Mr. Perry 
wrote a most touching appeal to the churches at home, in behalf 
of the " five thousand children turned out into the wilderness of 
heathenism, to be exposed to the roaring lion." 

How much this terrible disaster to the mission had to do with 
Mr. Perry's death we know not ; but he was greatly depressed by 
it ; he mourned as in a sore affliction. Still he seemed in good 
health; but the cholera was hovering about the mission, and he 
was one of its first victims. He was taken in the night ; suffered 
fearfully ; but died in peace the next day. He was a good and 
faithful missionary. Among his last words were these : " Oh that 
my death may be sanctified to the heathen, and to our dear friends 
in America." To his wife and child he said, "I give you to God. 
He will take care of you." This was his faith and his consola- 
tion ; but he did not know God's plans. He had been dead but a 
few hours when his wife was seized with the same fatal malady, 
and in three days she was buried at the side of her husband. She 
was a native of Norwich, in this State (Harriet J. Lathrop), and 
had three sisters (Mrs. Winslow, Mrs. Hutchings and Mrs. Cherry), 
wives of missionaries in the same field, though two of them had 
preceded her to the better country. The little girl, so peacefully 
committed to the care of Divine Providence, by the dying father, 
afterward found a home and culture and friends in this beautiful 
city of New Haven. 

Rev. Chester N. Righter (Class of 1850) was the Agent of 
the American Bible Society in the Levant — a missionary in fact, 
though not in name. 

He was a native of New Jersey (born in Parsippany, Sept. 25, 
1824), converted in youth, and at once felt drawn to the ministry. 
This was a sad disappointment to a doting father, who was a pros- 
perous business man, and who could conceive of nothing higher or 



47 

more honorable for his hopeful son than that he should walk in the 
father's footsteps. 

The son graduated at Yale College in 1846, and at the Seminary 
in 1850. By this time, however, his eyes had so completely given 
out, that he was advised to take a year of travel and rest, as the 
only means of restoration. He went as far east as Constantino- 
ple, where he was formally waited upon by two native Armenian 
pastors, and earnestly entreated to remain there as one of their 
missionaries. The " call " made a deep impression on his mind, 
though he did not then accept it. 

A year later, however, he returned thither, as the Agent of the 
American Bible Society ; and as such visited the Crimea, in the 
time of the war, and cooperated with others in the distribution of 
the Scriptures to the three armies. He visited Greece, Egypt 
and Syria, in the prosecution of his agency, everywhere aiding the 
missionaries, as he could, in their work. His last journey was 
into Eastern Turkey, as far as Mosul. At Harpoot he assisted in 
the organization of the native church there, which has since become 
a light for all that region. 

At Mardin he was taken sick. By much effort he reached Diar- 
bekr, where he died Dec. 15, 1856, at thirty-two years of age, 
and only two years after entering so hopefully on his work. A 
memoir of him, entitled, " The Bible in the Levant," was written 
by Dr. Samuel I. Prime. 

Rev. William C. Shipmai?^ (Class of 1853), a native of Weth- 
ersfield, Ct., pursued his classical studies at the Mission Institute, 
111., reached the Sandwich Islands in 1855, and died Dec. 21, 1861, 
aged 37 — six years a faithful and laborious missionary. He is de- 
scribed as a man of " great efficiency, eminent practical common 
sense, and sincere devotion to the temporal and spiritual welfare of 
his people." His character was said to resemble that of Felix Neff, 
who achieved such eminent usefulness among the Swiss peasants. 

Rev. Azariah Smith (Class of 1842) also died early, but he lived 
long enough to show that he was one of the ablest and best of the 
Lord's chosen. He was bom in Manlius, N. Y., Feb. 16,1817; 
graduated at Yale College in 1837, and at the Seminary in 1842. 
But he was not content with one profession. He added medicine 
to theology, and took a brief course in law also. He was a man 
of marked ability, and of great exactness and thoroughness in all his 
studies. And yet, in his unfeigned humility, he made such a mis- 
erable representation of himself, when he first appeared before the 



48 

Prudential Committee of the American Board, that they felt com- 
pelled to reject his application for appointment as a missionary. 
But when they made inquiry of others and found out what he 
really was, they hastened to correct their mistake. 

He reached Turkey in 1843, and was employed for five years in 
pioneer work, for which he was eminently adapted in other respects, 
as well as by being a single man. He visited most of the principal 
cities of Turkey, exploring and meantime studying the language 
as he went, ministering also in the healing art among the mission- 
aries and the natives, wherever his services were needed. He was 
with Botta for a time in his explorations at Ninev^eh. He closed 
the eyes of the dying Dr. Grant at Mosul. At great peril, he 
made a tour of observation in the Koordish Mountains. He suf- 
fered personal violence at the hands of a mob at Erzroom, for 
affording shelter to an Armenian priest who fled to him for pro- 
tection ; but, with a boldness and energy which always marked 
his career, he demanded redress of the Turkish Government, and 
he got it. 

He often went many miles out of his way to visit mission fam- 
ilies, to cheer them by his presence, and more especially, in 
times of cholera, to leave prescriptions and medicines for them, in 
case of sickness. He was himself attacked by that fearful malady 
when traveling in a desert, with only a single attendant, who fled 
from his tent in terror at the first manifestation of the disease ; 
but the Doctor was able partially to minister to himself, and after 
two days was well enough to resume his journey. He had no fear 
to add to the disease. 

In 1848 he visited this country, and was married. He returned 
at once with his wife to Turkey, and took up his abode in Aintab, 
a city of 40,000 inhabitants, about ninety miles northeast of 
Scanderoon. Several laborers in the Gospel had been violently 
driven from that city. Having the great advantage of being a 
medical man, he was able to hold his ground ; and here he laid the 
foundations of those two large churches which have since grown 
up, and of that evangelical community which is to-day the centre 
of life and light for that region. But, as before, his labors were 
confined to no one city. In 1851, he organized the church at 
Diarbekr, which has become large and flourishing. And, with all 
this direct missionary work in hand, enough for half a dozen men, 
he still found time to write scientific papers on meteorology and 
Syrian antiquities, which were published in the American Journal 
of Science. 



49 

But with such opportimities for usefulness as presented them- 
selves in that land, so much to be done and so few to do it, there 
is reason to fear that he attempted too much. On returning from 
the organization of the church at Diarbekr he was evidently 
over-weary, and was soon prostrated by a severe attack of typhoid 
pneumonia. Great anxiety was manifested by all for his recovery. 
The missionaries felt that they could not spare him ; his life seemed 
a necessity to the cause. The native converts also came daily 
to inquire for his welfare, and prayed fervently that his sickness 
might not be unto death ; but God had ordered otherwise. He 
died on the 3rd of June, 1851, at thirty-four years of age. But 
even in death he continued to do good, as the solemnity of the 
event deeply affected the whole community, and it was followed 
by a powerful revival of religion. 

Dr. Smith was not only a man of great energy, enterprise and 
enthusiasm, but he had the happy faculty of imparting something 
of those qualities to others. He had wonderful influence over the 
natives; wretched and ignorant and half starved, though they 
were, he made them believe that there was something for them to 
do ; and under his direction they worked to build up their schools 
and their chm'ches, with a wisdom and an energy far beyond any 
thing that could have been imagined of them but a little time 
before. He left his impress on the entire Central Turkey mission, 
one of the most advanced and successful of all the missions of the 
American Board. And he died, as he had lived, with an unfal- 
tering trust in the divine Redeemer. His last words were, " Praise, 
praise ! Amen !" 

Rev. Edwix Stevens (Class of 1832) was born in Xew Canaan, 
Ct., in 1802, graduated at Yale College in 1828, and was ordained 
in this city in 1832. He was unmarried, and went first to Canton, 
China, as Seamen's chaplain ; but by an arrangement with the 
American Seamen's Friend Society, made before he left, he became, 
three years later, a missionary of the American Board, in which 
relation he soon gave promise of great usefulness. The missiona- 
ries regarded him as a man of " mature judgment," " remarkable 
decision of character," of " holy intrepidity in facing dangers," of 
accurate scholarship and thorough biblical knowledge. They had 
counted on his services as one of the translators of the Scriptm-es ; 
and to this his own attention had been turned. 

But his career was a very short one. He was one of the pioneers 
in that land, and had made explorations, with Gutzlaff and others, 
4 



50 

as far north as Foo-Chow. In December, 1836, he was appointed 
by the mission to go southward, to visit some of the more impor- 
tant islands of the Indian Archipelago. He died at Singapore on 
the 5th of January, 1837, at thirty-six years of age, almost before 
fairly commencing the voyage. It was found afterward that he 
had anticipated a fatal termination to that journey — one of those 
mysterious presentiments for which it is impossible to account. 

Rev. David T. Stoddard (Class of 1842) was born in North- 
ampton, Mass., Dec. 2, 1818. His ancestry was of the highest 
character for intelligence, piety and social standing, and he had 
every advantage for education and religious culture which their 
position in life could give. He early manifested a real passion for 
study. His devotion, especially to astronomical pursuits, while in 
College, will be remembered by many, as well as his skill in mechan- 
ical operations ; for he made his own telescope, and took his own 
observations. He was a working astronomer. With others, 
almost as enthusiastic as himself, he spent some of his nights in 
watching the meteoric showers, of which the late Prof. Olmsted 
and Mr. Herrick have published full observations. 

It should be added, that Mr. Stoddard was almost equally pro- 
ficient in other studies. He was a general scholar. He graduated 
with honor from Yale College in 1838, when he was a little less 
than twenty years of age. But before his graduation, he had been 
Invited, on account of his scientific tastes and attainments, to join 
the South Sea Exploring Expedition, under Commodore Lynch — 
a very flattering offer, but gracefully declined, because he would 
not be diverted from the ministry. But immediately after gradu- 
ation, he did accept the offer of a tutorship in Marshall College, 
Pennsylvania, where he spent a year in patient study and success- 
ful teaching. While he was there, he was invited to a professor- 
ship in his favorite department, the Natural Sciences, in Marietta 
College, Ohio, also to the same department as Assistant Professor 
at Western Reserve College; but turning away from all such 
temptations, though they must have been great, he entered An- 
dover Seminary the next year, and began his more direct prepara- 
tion for the ministry. Before his first year at Andover was past, 
bowever, he received the appointment of tutor in Yale College, 
and that brought him again to New Haven, here to teach in the 
College, while pursuing his theological studies in the Seminary. 

He was licensed to preach in April, 1 842, by the Hampden Asso- 
ciation of Massachusetts. Some of the old ministers were afraid 



51 

of him, because he came from New Haven ; but after subjecting 
him to a rigid examination of four hours, they finally suffered him 
to pass, with a solemn admonition to stiffen up his Calvinism, if 
he ever expected to do any good in the world. 

So far, however, he had felt no very special drawing toward the 
missionary work. But in September of the same year he was pas- 
sing a Sabbath in Middlebury, Vt., and supplied the pulpit of the 
Congregational Church. Rev. Justin Perkins was there, looking 
for a missionary to go back with him to Persia. As he saw this 
slender, fair, beardless youth ascend the pulpit, he was drawn to 
him. And when he heard him preach he was still more taken, and 
made up his mind at once to lay siege. The question was soon 
settled, and in March of the following year they embarked together 
for their distant field of labor. 

By Mr. Perkins's advice he took his telescope with him, and it 
gave him great advantage in his teaching and in his influence over 
*' the wise men of the East." They soon saw that the astronomy 
of the West was something far superior to their own, although 
star-gazing had for ages been one of their special pursuits. They 
began to look up to this beardless youth for instruction in all 
the sciences. They were the more ready to listen also to his 
moral and religious teachings. 

His missionary life, we need hardly say, was one of great activ- 
ity and usefulness. For much of the time he was at the head of 
the Seminary, at Ooroomiah, for native youth. He was a teacher 
at once of the sciences and languages and theology ; and some 
are still preaching the gospel in that dark land who were well 
trained for that service under his faithful and judicious instructions. 

Here also he found scope for all his varied talents and acquisi- 
tions. There were no time-pieces in the land. Nobody pretended 
to keep any appointment. Time has no value in such a country. 
He constructed numerous sun-dials, and set them in conspicuous 
places, to try to teach the people to take some note of time. And 
to carry out the same idea more perfectly, he sent to America, 
doubtless to Connecticut, for clocks. But as there were no clock- 
makers in Persia to set them up, or keep them in order, when they 
got there, he sent to a clock-maker in Northampton for instruc- 
tions, so that he might attend to these necessary operations himself. 
He interested and astonished the people with the wonders of the 
microscope, made by his own hands. He constructed a camera 
obscura, and a balloon, to please and instruct his scholars. The 



52 

gifts and capacities thus manifested would of course have fitted 
him for almost any position in his native land ; but they also made 
him just so much more acceptable and useful as a missionary. Not 
one of all his gifts or attainments was thrown away. 

It was not all sunshine, however, in the Mission. At times there 
was violent opposition, and it seemed again and again as though 
the work must cease, and all the faithful laborers be driven from 
the field. But even at such times Mr. Stoddard managed to keep 
his little school in operation " with just as much interest," as he 
wrote to his brother in Boston, " as if I was a preacher in Park 
street church ; and I do not envy the situation of any living man. 
I am just where God would have me be, and here I mean to stay 
just so long as he wants me ; then I shall be ready to go some- 
where else." 

But there was prosperity also. The Kestorian Mission was vis- 
ited with great and powerful revivals of religion. In these Mr. 
Stoddard was a devoted and happy laborer, a fervid and instructive 
preacher, a safe guide and counselor. He had Calvinism enough 
to be the means of bringing many souls to Christ. 

In 1848, however, after five years of such incessant and ex- 
hausting labors, his health, never robust, was considerably im- 
paired ; and although he was very unwilling to leave his post even 
for a few days of recreation, he was finally persuaded to take his 
family and go as far as Trebizond ; hoping that the journey would 
restore him to his usual vigor. At Trebizond they were ordered 
into quarantine because of the cholera, and there his wife died of 
that fearful malady, although she was perfectly well when she 
entered. He then started, by the help of a native nurse, to bring 
his motherless children to this country. At Constantinople the 
nurse died of the same disease, and, in all his feebleness, he had to 
be father and mother and nurse to two helpless little ones for the 
rest of the journey. 

He reached his native land at last, but did not mend rapidly. 
Impatient as he was to get back to his poor Nestorians, it was not 
considered prudent for him to start for two years. Meantime he 
was not idle — he could not be while the breath of life remained. 
He wrote a most glowing account of those marvelous revivals 
among the Nestorians, which was published in different forms, and 
scattered broad-cast over the land, and did much to increase the 
interest in missions. He spoke at the anniversary of the American 
Board, spoke in many missionary meetings, preached in many 
churches, and his glowing words everywhere enkindled new 



53 

enthusiasm. For a time also he edited the Missionary Herald, and 
did something through its columns to impart new interest to the 
cause. 

In 1850, however, having regained his health, in part at least, 
and having married again, he returned to Persia, where he spent 
six years more, making twelve in all of actual residence in that 
land, and of faithful, Avise and successful missionary service ; and 
then he died in all the triumphs of the Christian faith, blessing 
God that he had been permitted to be a missionary of the cross in 
poor benighted Persia. 

His memoir was written by his early and devoted friend, Rev. 
Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, the one who first led him to Christ — 
a fit memorial of a most intelligent, devoted and useful mis- 
sionary. 

Rev. Samuel G. Whittlesey (Class of 1840) was born in New 
Britain, Ct., Nov. 8, 1809, and graduated at Yale College in 1834. 
He reached Ceylon in April, 1842, and died March 10, 1847 — only 
five short years on mission ground; but they were years of suc- 
cessful study, of constant labor and manifest usefulness. 

Much of the time he had charge of the Female Seminary at 
Oodooville. In this position he had some trials to contend with, 
which are not so common in our own land. One was the prevalent 
habit among the girls of chewing betel and smoking tobacco. He 
tried hard to break this up ; but the prohibition had been in force 
but a few days, when he " received a most earnest petition from 
some of the girls to be allowed to go to a most retired place, and 
smoke only once a day," as he had taken them by surprise by his 
rules, and it was hard " to break off at oncey Plainly, those girls 
belonged to the human family. 

Another incident was quite unlike things in this country. One 
of his scholars had been enticed away, and was detained by her 
friends. He and Mr. Meigs made " a sudden foray," as he called 
it, " into the jungle, to try to bring her back." The girl was 
anxious to return, but it was dark before he obtained the reluctant 
consent of her poor heathen relatives, and late in the evening 
before he reached home again. " My feelings," he said, " were very 
peculiar. Foreigners and strangers, we had suddenly pounced 
like a hawk upon our prey, but with love in our hearts, and were 
carrying it away. We had left the ninety and nine in the fold, 
and had sought and found the straying lamb. Thus the Saviour 
himself came. Oh that he may receive this lamb to himself! 1 



54 

am happy to add, that she is one of those for whom we begin to 
entertain some hope." 

Mr. Whittlesey manifested a true devotion to his work. " I 
would rather be a missionary," he said, " in this dark land, 
*',pointing these ignorant heathen to Christ, than be in America, 
enjoying all the pleasures of a civilized country." He had enjoyed 
those pleasures in the best society of New York and New Haven. 
He spoke understandingly ; but his testimony accords with that 
of all the best missionaries. They have the " hundred-fold even 
in this life (some of them say, it is a thousand-fold), and in the 
world to come, life everlasting." 

11. Missionaries who have Retired. 

It will hardly be expected that we should do more than name 
these, and designate their respective fields of labor. The time for 
their full biographies has not yet come. 

Rev. Josiah Brewer (Class of 1825) is the first name on the 
retired list, and he was one of the first cla^s which graduated 
from the Seminary. The institution promised well. The first 
class, only eight in number, furnished one missionary. If all the 
other classes had done as well, we should have had one hundred 
names on our roll to-day, instead of thirty-one only. For some 
reason, the next three classes did not furnish a single missionary. 

Mr. Brewer was a native of Tyringham in Massachusetts, and a 
graduate of Yale College. He was ordained at Springfield, Mass., 
May 10, 1826, and was for about twelve years (1826 to 1838) a 
missionary in Turkey. Since returning to this country, he has 
been employed in teaching and preaching, and is now residing 
at Stockbridge, Mass., without charge. 

Rev. James T. Dickinson (Class of 1830), a native of Low- 
ville, N. Y., and a graduate of Yale College, was pastor of the 
Second Congregational Church of Norwich, Ct., for about two 
years (1832-4), very popular and apparently very useful. Much 
to the regret of his people he resigned his charge, and went as a 
missionary to Singapore. He returned to this country in 1843, 
after an absence of seven years, and resides in Middlefield, in this 
State. 

Rev. Lewis Grout (Class of 1846) was a native of Vermont 
and graduated at Yale College in 1842. He went to the Zulus of 
South Africa early in 1847, where he labored thirteen years, until 
1862. A part of the time he had charge of the press, and pre- 



/ 



65 

pared and printed a Grammar of the Zulu language. Since his 
return to this country he has published a very valuable volume, 
entitled " Zululand^'* giving an interesting account of the man- 
ners, customs, language and superstitions of that people. He has 
been a pastor a part of the time since his return, and is now an 
Agent of the American Missionary Association, residing at West 
Brattleboro', Vt. 

Rev. Henry A. Homes (Class of 1834) was a native of Boston 
and a graduate of Amherst in 1830. After leaving the Seminary he 
spent two years in Oriental studies in Paris ; was ordained there, 
the service being in the French language, and participated in by 
no less than three of the members of the American Board provi- 
dentially present. For about fifteen years he was a missionary in 
Turkey. He was a good scholar, and rendered some aid in the 
work of translation. On account of his business capacity he had 
charge for a time of the Book department, a post of much respon- 
sibility. In one of his tours into eastern Turkey, he narrowly 
escaped with his life, and was obliged to flee in disguise from the 
city of Mardin. He served for a short time as Secretary of Lega- 
tion at the Sublime Porte. He returned to this country in 1853, 
and has since resided in Albany, as Librarian of the State Library, 
an office for which his tastes and studies eminently fit him. 

Rev. Charles Little (Class of 1847) was a native of Colum- 
bia, in this State, a graduate of Yale College in 1844; ten years 
a good and faithful missionary at Madura, India ; but compelled 
by ill-health to relinquish the work. He is now editor of a paper 
in Xebraska. 

Rev. and Hon. Peter Parker, M. D. (Class of 1834) was a 
native of Massachusetts, and a graduate of Yale College in the class 
of 1831. He went to China in 1834, both as missionary and physi- 
cian. In the latter capacity he established a hospital at Canton. 
This was intended mainly for the treatment of eye diseases, as 
those are particularly prevalent in that land; but it was soon 
found impossible to exclude other maladies, for the people came 
thronging to the institution with all sorts of diseases, and in such 
numbers that it was simply impossible to receive all. 

Reception days were appointed, limited a part of the time to 
only one in two weeks. Applications for admission would not be 
received on any other day. So eager were some to gain admit- 
tance, when that day should come, that they would rise at mid- 
night, and by the light of their lanterns gather at the doors of 



56 

the hospital and wait for the morning. And they would find 
others already there, who had come from a distance and spread 
their mats upon the ground the evening before, to sleep the night 
away, and be the first, if possible, at the opening of the doors. 
Over 2,000 were treated the first year. 

Nor were these the poor and the lowly alone. Rich merchants, 
literary and professional men and officers of government were also 
there, in their silk vestments and witb their retinues of attend- 
ants, each waiting his turn. Fathers brought their children, and 
children their parents ; brothers their sisters and sisters their broth- 
ers ; some coming with great pain and toil from distant provinces? 
for the story of the marvelous cures wrought in the institution had 
spread afar. 

And here were wounds and bruises and ulcers and abscesses 
and tumors and inflammations, enough to have frightened a man 
whose nerves were not made of iron. But, literally, the deaf were 
made to hear, the blind to see, the lame to walk. Such wonders 
had never before been known in China. Some of those who were 
healed returned to give glory to the healer. He could scarcely 
restrain their actual worship. They fell at his feet. They kissed 
the hem of his garment — so grateful were they for the relief expe- 
rienced from their terrible maladies. 

Many offered valuable presents ; and when these were refused, 
it seemed to them more wonderful than all the cures he wrought. 
" This doctor," they said, " heals men at his own cost ; and though 
he does it, he will not take any credit to himself for it, but ascribes 
all to heaven." Such disinterestedness and such humility were 
utterly beyond their comprehension. 

One man who had been in utter darkness for years, was easily 
operated upon for cataract and made to see. He was so over- 
whelmed with gratitude, that he wanted a likeness of the doctor, 
that he might worship it every day. This, of course, was refused, 
and he was told that worship was due to God only. But this did 
not prevent the grateful man from writing an ode, of sixteen enor- 
mous stanzas, hexameter, in praise of his benefactor. It may 
edify us to read a few lines — we mean the translation, not the 
original. 

Three days I lay, no food had I, and nothing did I feel ; 
Nor hunger, sorrow, pain, nor hope, nor thought of woe or weal ; 
My vigor fled, my life seemed gone, when sudden, in my pain, 
There came one ray, one glimmering ray — I see, I live again. 



57 

As starts from visions of the night one who has a fearful dream, 
As from the tomb iiprushiug comes one restored to day's bright beam, 
Thus I, with ghidness and surprise, with joy and keen dehght, 
See friends and kindred crowd ai-ound — I hail the blessed Ught I 

"With grateful heart, with heaving breast, with feehngs flowing o'er, 
I cried, " lead me quick to him who can the sight restore." 
To kneel I tried ; but he forbade ; and forcing me to rise, 
" To mortal man bend not the knee ; " then, pointing to the skies, 
" I'm but," said he, " the workman's tool ; another's is the hand ; 
Before Ms might, and in his sight, men feeble, helpless stand ; 
Go, virtue learn to cultivate ; and never thou forget 
That for some work of future good thy life is spared thee yet." 

Of course, the principal object in establishing this hospital was 
to prepare the way for gospel truth. Dr. Parker often preached 
to its inmates, both collectively and individually ; and in grati- 
tude to their benefactor, they were the more ready to hear 
what he had to say about the greater malady of sin, and the great 
Physician of the soul. While under treatment they often spent 
their leisure hours poring over such reading as the missionary was 
pleased to give ; and when restored to health, they took their 
Bibles and their good books with them to their homes ; and thus 
the seed of the kingdom was scattered far and wide. 

In 1840, on the occurrence of hostilities between England and 
China, the hospital was suspended, and Dr. Parker embraced the 
opportunity to revisit his native land. Returning, however, in 1 842, 
the hospital was again opened, and again thronged. In about twen- 
ty years of its operations no less than 53,000 patients were under 
treatment ! Did ever a hospital do more good ? Was ever a bet- 
ter sphere offered for medical skill of the highest order? 

In 1845, eleven years after first going to China, Dr. Parker 
resigned his connection with the American Board, and became 
Secretary of Legation and Chinese Interpreter to the new embassy 
from this country; but the hospital went on as before, until 1855, 
when Dr. Parker found his health so much impaired that he felt 
obliged to visit the United States. He returned to China in Oc- 
tober of the same year, as U. S. Commissioner, with full powers 
to revise the treaty of 1844. On the change of administration, he 
returned to America in 1 857, and since then has resided mostly in 
Washington, always a warm friend of missions, and a liberal pat- 
ron of the American Board, under whose appointment he began 
his distinguished career. 

Rev. Chaeles S. Sherman (Class of 1838) was born in Albany, 
N. Y., and graduated at Yale College in 1835. He went in the 



58 

fall of 1839 as a missionary to Jerusalem, and entered resolutely 
and hopefully upon missionary labor, in one of the most interest- 
ing, but most difficult and discouraging of all the mission fields. 
Before two years were past, however, he had gone through a 
course of typhoid fever and small-pox. It was only wonderful 
that he survived to get home — but he did ; and yet with constitu- 
tion too much impaired to think of returning to his field as a mis- 
sionary. But though denied this privilege, he has done good ser- 
vice at home ; four years pastor at New Britain, twenty years at 
I*^aiigatuck, and now preaching to a Presbyterian Church in 
Nassau, N". Y. 

Key. Asa B. Smith (Class of 1837), a native of Williamstown, 
Yt., and a graduate of Middlebury College, was about three years 
among the Indians of Oregon, an associate of the massacred Whit- 
man ; then about the same length of time a missionary to the 
Sandwich Islands, and returned to this country in 1846. He was 
pastor for about a dozen years at Buckland, Mass., Stated Sup- 
ply about the same length of time at Southbury, in this State, and 
now lives at Rocky Hill. 

Prof. Moses C. White, M. D. (Class of 1848), a native of New 
York State, and a graduate of Wesleyan University (1845), was a 
student of theology and of medicine in this city, 1845 to 1847, 
ordained at Middletown in March, 1847, and missionary of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church at Foochow, China, from 1847 to 
1858. In 1851 he published the first translation of the gospel of 
Matthew in the Foochow colloquial. 

He returned to this country in 1854, received the degree of 
Doctor of Medicine from Yale College the same year, and has 
resided in New Haven ever since, practicing the healing art. In 
1867, he was elected Professor of Pathology and Microscopy in 
the Medical Department of this University. 

III. Missionai'ies still in the Field. 
Rev. Isaac C Bliss, D.D, (Class of 1847), was born in Spring- 
field, Mass., graduated at Amherst College in 1844, and began his 
missionary life at Erzroom, Turkey, in 1847. By the exposure al- 
most unavoidable in some of the exploring tours made by him, his 
health, never rugged, was in five years so much impaired that he 
had to come home for rest and restoration. But health did not 
soon return. He was detained five years in this country, preaching 
a part of the time ; and finally went back to Turkey, in the fall of 
1857, as Agent of the American Bible Society. He is at present 



59 

superintending the erection of a Bible House in Constantinople? 
which will be, to some extent, the home and rallying point for all 
evangelical work in Turkey. In this business life his health is 
somewhat better, and he is in fact nearly as much a missionary as be- 
fore, cheerfully cooperating with the missionaries in all their work. 

Rev. Henry Blodget (Class of 1852) was born in Bucksport, 
Maine, and graduated at Yale College in 1848. He was a classmate 
in College and in the Seminary and a fellow Tutor in the College 
with Rev. William Aitchison, and sailed with him in 1854, on his 
mission to China ; and there Mr. Blodget still remains at his post, 
with a persistency of purpose, and a devotion to his work, second to 
none on our list. He was first stationed at Shanghai ; but as soon 
as it was possible for missionaries to enter Peking, he was one 
of the first to plant the standard of the cross within the ancient 
walls of the great capital. He was spared to do the work which 
was so much coveted by his beloved and accomplished associates, 
Aitchison and Macy. He has made good attainments in the lan- 
guage and literature of China, and has translated the entire New 
Testament and many hymns into the colloquial dialect of Peking. 
He recently made a brief visit to this country, and went back in 
1869 to his labors.* 

Rev. Cornelius B. Bradley (Class of 1871) is the youngest of 
the foreign missionary band. He was born in Siam, the son of 
a missionary. He graduated from the Seminary only last year, 
and sailed almost at once for Siam to take up the work which his 
father must soon resign by reason of age. 

Rev. Julius Y. Leonard (Class of 1855) is a laborious mission- 
ary at Marsovan, Turkey. His wife, who was from this city, is 
also doing good service. He was a native of Berkshire, N. Y. ; 
graduated at Yale College in 1851 ; was ordained and married in 
this city in June, 1857, and reached his field of labor Sept. 4, 1857. 
He recently spent two years in this country, and went back to his 
work in 1870. 

Rev. William Mellen (Class of 1849) has been for twenty-one 
years a missionary among the Zulus, of South Africa, not having 
left his work, so far as we can learn, for a single day in that time ; 
a very remarkable example of quiet, patient persistence in mission 
labor. He was born in Temple, New Hampshire, and began his 
work among the Zulus in 1851. 

* He has been honored with the degree of D.D. by his Alma Mater since the 
above was written. 



60 

Rev. Andrew T. Pratt, M.D. (Class of 1852) was born at Black 
Rock, N. Y., and graduated at Yale College in 1847. He was 
ordained and married in this city on the same day, Aug. 8, 1852. 
His wife was a niece of Mr. Goodyear, and an assistant in his 
experiments and discoveries in the rubber business. 

Dr. Pratt went to Turkey in 1852, and was first stationed at 
Aintab, where Dr. Azariah Smith had labored so successfully. He 
is fitted, like his predecessor, in an eminent degree for pioneer work, 
much of which has fallen to his lot. He resided for a time in Aintab, 
then in Aleppo, then in Marash, and visited many other places, 
aiding in the formation of churches, in training and settling native 
pastors, composing difficulties, counseling the brethren, encourag- 
ing the weak and recovering the fallen. For years he seemed by 
common consent to have the general oversight of the Central 
Turkey Mission. His last work in that field was teaching in the 
Theological Seminary at Marash ; but ever since the autumn of 
1868 he has resided in Constantinople, engaged in revising the 
translation of the Scriptures made by Dr. Goodell into the Armeno- 
Turkish. 

Rev. Isaac Pierson (Class of 1869) was born in Orange, N. J., 
graduated at Yale College, and pursued his theological studies 
partly in this Seminary and partly in Andover. He went to China 
less than two years since, and already he has been called to suffer 
violence at the hands of those for whom he crossed sea and con- 
tinent in love. 

In connection with others he is occupying an advanced position 
— Yu-Cho, — about one hundred and fifty miles west of Peking. 
In December last he was assailed in the streets by an infuriated 
rabble, robbed of his watch and other valuables, pelted with 
stones, and beaten from street to street, until at last when he made 
his escape, his whole body was bruised, and his head badly swollen 
and bleeding. 

This was the report which came to us but a few weeks ago, and 
excited not a little solicitude and sympathy in his behalf. But 
almost the next mail brought the cheering intelligence that ample 
reparation has already been made by the local authorities in an- 
swer to the demands of another missionary of the American Board, 
who is acting for the time as Secretary of Legation at Peking. 
Seven of the leaders of the mob were severely punished, ample 
restitution was made for the property stolen, and all the expenses 
incurred by the missionaries in seeking redress were paid by the 
authorities and assessed upon the citizens of the place where the 



61 

outbreak occurred. A proclamation was also made by the Gov- 
ernor of the city, warning the people not to molest the " Honor- 
able Americans," and assuring them that the missionaries were 
there for their good and must be protected. 

And thus in the person of one of the younger missionaries of 
this Seminary, religious liberty achieves one of its greatest tri- 
umphs in China. The missionaries will not soon again be mo- 
lested in that part of the country. 

Rev. Albert A. Stueges (Class of 1851) was a native of Ohio, 
and pursued his preparatory studies at Wabash College. He was 
one of the first company of missionaries to the far off Micronesian 
Islands. Those who heard his farewell speech at the meeting of 
the American Board in Brooklyn, a year ago last fall, will not 
soon forget the robust cheer of the man, or the bright, hopeful 
aspect which he gave to a service which sometimes runs a little 
too much to sadness. 

He said he was one of a little band of missionaries who went 
nineteen years before to Micronesia. " Mark you," he interposed, 
" I did not say little missionaries, for I was one of them." And 
there he stood before us, over six feet high, and of corresponding 
proportions, brown and ruddy, a striking picture of robust 
strength. An audible smile ran through the house. " And," he 
added " Brother Snow was another " — and turning to Mr. Snow, 
who sat upon the platform, he called upon him to rise and show 
himself; and as he too stood up, another son of Anak, the audience 
were convulsed with laughter. 

" And," he continued, " we did not go down there into Microne- 
sia, even though it is five thousand miles from anywhere, to pine 
away and die of loneliness — we were too busy for that. Neither 
did we go to bury our wives there. We brought them back T\dth 
us, and we are all here to-day ; just come over to see how you are 
getting along in the old homestead, and then we must be right off 
again to our work in Micronesia." 

It was one of the happiest missionary speeches heard in a long 
time, and showed that Albert Sturges was a man worthy of the 
noble company in which to-day we find him. He went back last 
year, although his wife was too unwell to go with him. She is 
still in this country, seeking health, and he at work alone among 
those poor Micronesians, five thousand miles southwest of San 
Francisco. Surely such laborers will have their reward. 



62 

This completes the list of thirty-one missionaries ;* all graduates 
of college but two ; — educated men, thoroughly furnished for their 
work. And nineteen out of the thirty-one were from Yale College. 
It is well the Seminary is here— it lays hold of some before they 
have time to get away. 

Let it be noticed also that eighteen of these missionaries were 
born in New England, where most good things are expected to 
originate ; seven being natives of Massachusetts and six of Con- 
necticut. And yet eight, the largest number from any one State, 
were from New York. 

All but five were married men ; putting honor upon the Chris- 
tian household in the sight of the heathen, and providing for their 
own greater content, comfort and cheer in their difficult and 
depressing work. 

Nine were missionaries to China; seven in Turkey; four in 
Africa ; three in India ; two in Persia ; one in Syria ; one to the 
American Indians and the Sandwich Islands ; a second one to the 
Sandwich Islands, one to Siam, and one to Micronesia. They have 
touched the four quarters of the globe. They have wrought in a 
dozen different languages. They have reduced some of these to 
writing, preparing books and translations of the Scriptures for 
people before in utter darkness, thus laying the very foundations 
of all education and true religion. 

They have contended with Buddhism in China, with fetish and 
devil worship in Africa, with equally deadly superstition and 
false religion in Turkey ; with brute stupidity and pagan idolatry 
in the islands of the sea; everywhere showing the grand superi- 
ority of the gospel of the Son of God over all false religions, to 
give comfort in this life, and the only true hope of the life to 
come. 

It may have been noticed also that many of these missionaries 
died young. Possibly some may think their lives were almost 
thrown away. But we doubt if any other thirty-one students of 
this Seminary, taken at random, have done as much to spread the 
truth and bless the world as they. Men have died young in this 
land also. There are many stars on the forthcoming Semi-Centen- 
nial Catalogue. But the missionaries do not all die young. Rev. 
Levi Spaulding and wife have been forty-three years in Ceylon, 
still living and working. Dr. Goodell was fifty- three in Turkey; 



* Hohannes, an Armenian from Turkey, spent two years in the Seminary be- 
tween 1845-1 848, and has since been pastor of a native church in his own country, 
of whom we are not able to make more particular mention. 



63 

Messrs. Walker and Bushnell thirty years at the Gaboon. Most 
of the missionaries now in India, in South Africa, in Turkey have 
seen many years of service. They do not die because they are 
missionaries. Even though it were demonstrable that their lives 
were somewhat shortened, that proves nothing in regard to the 
question of duty, or the blessedness of the missionary work. The 
Saviour's life was short. Most of the Apostles died young. But 
the gospel must be preached in all the icorld / and blessed are 
they that truly preach it. 

We only wish that the proportion of foreign laborers from this 
Seminary had been larger. It does not compare favorably with 
other Seminaries. Here it is only one to twenty-eight ; in Princeton 
one to eighteen ; in Andover and Union one to sixteen. With 
nearly 60,000 evangelical clergy to forty millions of people in this 
country, and less than two hundred missionaries to four hundred 
millions of people in China, it would seem as though a just com- 
passion would spare a few more men to that dark land. Is it too 
much to expect a goodly number in the future from this renovated 
and newly prosperous institution ? Can they do better for them- 
selves, or more for the honor of Christ, or for the interests of hu- 
manity, than to be Foreign Missionaries ? 



REMAEKS OF REV. DR. SrCKINGHAif. 

Rev. Samuel G. Buckingham, D.D. (Class of 1836), of Spring- 
field, Mass., called attention to the comparison between this Semi- 
nary and some others, in respect to the number of its alumni 
who have engaged in foreign missionary labor, and said that it 
seemed due to the Institution and to the early professors to make 
an explanation of what might otherwise seem to show a lack of 
the missionary spirit here. 

Almost from the first, the " Illinois Band," so called, with their 
devotion to Home Missions, and their favorite project of founding a 
New England College at the West, enlisted the students in that 
enterprise and in that field of labor. Then after Dr. Beecher re- 
moved to the West, he never came to the East without visiting 
New Haven, and appealing to the students to come to the West. 
Romanism was then, in his estimation, the danger of the times, 
and if we would save the country, and bless the world, we must 
win that battle at the West. And his appeals, and the admiration 



64 

felt for him here, and the peculiar friendship that existed between 
him and the Professors of this Seminary, had their influence, and 
no doubt diverted some missionary spirits from the Foreign to the 
Home field. But who shall say that there was any loss in it ? 
Are we not all the better prepared to prosecute the Foreign Mis- 
sionary work, and is not some of the interest in this work which is 
now developing so well at the West, the result of what took place 
here, and of the direction which was then given to the labors 
and enthusiasm of those students ? 

It should also be said, that while Dr. Taylor did not urge his 
students to become Foreign Missionaries in preference to Home 
Missionaries, or to occupying important positions at the East, he 
appreciated and loved Foreign Missions as well as his friend Dr. 
Beecher. No man ever had a sublimer faith than he in the 
Gospel as the power of God to save any sinner. Gentile as well as 
Jew, and in its ability to commend itself to every man's con- 
science in the sight of God, — or expected from it greater triumphs. 
But he was accustomed to attach more importance than most men, 
to positions and places, as furnishing facilities for the propagation 
of the Gospel. As Paul was anxious to reach Rome, and preach 
Christianity at that center of power and learning and influence, 
so Dr. Taylor used to wish that he could go to Paris and preach 
and lecture there. And so he deemed it of the first importance 
that our own country should be cared for, and important positions 
in it be occupied by able and devoted ministers, and thus the 
most aid be secured toward the grand result. 



YALE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AND HOME MISSIONS. 

The following paper, prepared by Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, D.D. 
(Class of 1830), President, of Illinois College, who was unable to 
be present, was then read : 

The American people have come to a consciousness of their 
great national destiny much as a child becomes conscious of his 
powers, and learns what is involved in his manhood. Our fathers 
of the Plymouth colony were, as Gov. Bradford testifies, greatly 
influenced in their determination to emigrate to America, " by a 
great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good founda- 
tion, or at least to make some way thereunto, for propagating and 
advancing y^ gospel of y® kingdom of Christ in those remote 



65 

parts of y^ world, yea though they should be but even as stepping 
stones unto others for y^ performing of so great a work." But 
their knowledge of the extent and resources of the land to which 
they were going, and their conception of the future of the civil 
state of which they laid the foundation in the cabin of the May- 
flower, were like the first dim vision of manhood which flits 
before the eye of childhood. From that dim and shadowy dream 
of a great future, as connected with the first religious colony 
settled in North America, to the full and solemn consciousness of a 
great national destiny which fills our minds, the progress has been 
as gradual as that of infancy to manhood. 

Yet though on the scale of seven generations this progress has 
been gradual, it has not been uniform. There have been eras when 
a clearer vision of the great and solemn destiny before us than we 
had evej before attained has burst upon us like a newly risen sun, 
or like a revelation from heaven ; times when a lesson which God 
had been long teaching us by his providence became all at once evi- 
dent to all minds, fixed universal attention, and excited universal 
interest. 

The decade of our national history from 1820 to 1830 was 
strikingly of this character. It was then that the people of the 
United States distinctly read, in anticipation, the solution of the 
great problem of the peopling of the great Mississippi valley by 
an English-speaking Anglo-American population, and its speedy 
annexation to the great American Republic, in a group of new 
States of gigantic wealth and power. The settlement of the oldest 
of these States, Ohio, had been begun in the 18th century, and 
prosecuted during the first twenty years of the 19th, but feebly, 
and under great difficulties. Indiana and Illinois had been ad- 
mitted to the Union, but in feebleness and with no promise of 
rapid growth in population or wealth. The products of the valley 
could only reach the Atlantic seaboard in wagons, and at an ex- 
pense greater than their value in the Eastern markets would 
repay. The unwieldly flat boat, dependent chiefly on the current 
for moving power, was their only means of conveying those pro- 
ducts to the Gulf of Mexico. Had this state of things continued, 
the rich lands of this great valley must have remained unculti- 
vated for several generations to come. 

But in the decade of which we are speaking, the Erie canal was 

completed, and easily brought the agricultural products of the 

vast regions adjoining the lakes to the mouth of the Hudson; 

and steam had demonstrated its power to contend with the cur- 

5 



rent of the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Missouri, and to bear on 
the bosom of those rivers the products of the great valley to the 
markets of the world, and bring back in return the products of 
all other lands. The problem was solved, and it was thus made 
apparent to the dullest intellect, that the resources of a mighty 
empire were to be added to the American Republic in a single 
century. 

The effect of this newly-revealed vision of the future on the 
national mind was startling, and as grand as it was startling. An 
impulse was given to every species of activity seldom if ever 
equaled in the history of the world. The newly-opened vision 
appealed, not like the discovery of America, to a few restless and 
reckless adventurers, but to the most sober, thoughtful and sub- 
stantial men. It held out inducements to mighty enterprises, to 
men of the coolest heads and the soundest judgments. « It sum- 
moned millions to break away from the homes of their childhood 
and to go and lay the foundations not only of their own fortunes, 
but of cities and states, in those fertile regions which were only 
waiting for the cultivator, to smile with beauty and teem with 
abundance. 

It is one of the characteristic features of our whole national his- 
tory, that the seeds sown by the religious fathers of the nation 
have always borne their fruit in crises like this. It was not worldly 
ambition alone which was stimulated by the opening of the 
Mississippi valley to the enterprise of the nation. No portion of 
our whole population was more intensely alive to the vastness of 
the destiny which was opening before us than the churches of 
New England. They " had a great hope and inward zeal of lay- 
ing some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto 
for the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of 
Christ in those remote parts." It was clearly seen by all enlight- 
ened men among them that unless the vast populations which were 
soon to dwell in that valley should be pervaded and controled by 
the gospel of Christ, they would be incapable of American liberty ; 
that if they should come either under the influence of infidelity or 
the superstitions of Popery, they would soon fall into anarchy and 
degradation, and by their preponderating weight drag down with 
them our liberty and our religion. It was distinctly seen that the 
valley of the Mississippi must be filled with an enlightened Chris- 
tianity, or there could be nothing great or good in the future 
destiny of our country. 



67 

The result was a vast increase of zeal for Home Missions. Out of 
this came in 1826 the organization of the American Home Mis- 
sionary Society, as an organ through which the New England 
churches and all those out of New England in sympathy with this 
their newly awakened zeal for Home evangelization might reach 
the great valley, and lay new foundations for Christ wherever the 
emigrant was seekino* a home in the wilderness. It was the reli- 
gious life of the nation quickened into new activity and vigor, to 
meet the great crisis which the Providence of God had now 
revealed. That the spirit of Home Missionary enterprise should 
at that time have been quickened to an activity and efficiency 
never experienced before, was necessary to the nation's life and 
safety. 

Only four years before the organization of the American Home 
Missionary Society, the Theological Department of Yale College 
had received its distinct organization, and commenced its career 
as a religious power in the land. This greatly quickened intensity 
of zeal for Home Missions was the first wave of missionary enthu- 
siasm which passed over it. In the last half of the decade of 
which I am speaking, the claims of the new States of the West 
(as it was then called) on the young men who were then just 
entering the ministry, so absorbed the attention of the students of 
this Seminary, that for the time being little was thought or said 
of foreign fields. One question for the time almost exluded every 
other, — how can we conquer and hold the great Mississippi valley 
for Christ ? 

As a consequence many of the most gifted young men in the 
Seminary had, before they completed their theological curriculum, 
devoted their lives to evangelical labors in remote new settlements, 
without ever having made their appearance in the pulpits of New 
England, as candidates for the ministry. 

There was much in the moral atmosphere of the Seminary at 
that time to favor and promote bold and seK-sacrificing religious 
enterprises. Those who distrusted Dr. Taylor's teachings, feared 
that he was undermining fundamental Christianity. The impres- 
sion he made on his pupils was exactly the reverse of this. The 
enlightened and thoughtful minds that were feeling the influence 
of his teaching found themselves happily relieved from many 
philosophical difficulties with which the gospel had before seemed 
to them embarrassed and impeded. They were raised to a fervent 
and undoubting faith, which they had not before experienced, in its 
truth, its capability of being successfully defended, and its power 



68 

to overcome obstacles and save our country and the world. A 
more fervent faith in the truth and certain triumph of the gospel 
has seldom existed in modern times than in the yoimg men under 
Dr. Taylor's instruction. He himself rather discouraged their 
going into distant fields of missionary effort. He felt himself to 
be environed with peculiar difficulties, and wanted his pupils, as 
speedily as possible, to come to his rescue, by filling at least some 
of the prominent pulpits of New England. But they were not 
greatly impressed with the necessity of this. They had full faith 
in the ability of their admired teacher to fight his own battles 
without any of their help, and were quite ready to try the temper 
of the weapons with which he had furnished them upon any human 
material, however refractory. 

One of the most important results of this state of things in the 
Seminary was the organization, in the latter part of the year 1828, 
of the Association of young men in the Theological Department 
of Yale College. The Association was composed of young men 
pursuing a course of Theological study, who had become pledged 
to devote themselves, on the completion of that course, to the 
work of Home Missions in the then infant State of Illinois, and to 
aid in founding Christian churches and a college in that State. 
The Association originally consisted of seven members, viz: 
Theron Baldwin, John F. Brooks, Mason Grosvenor, Elisha Jen- 
ney, Wm. Kirby, Julian M. Sturtevant and Asa Turner. Several 
other names were afterward added, among them those of Flavel 
Bascom, Lucien Farnham of Andover Seminary, Albert Hale, 
Wm. Carter, Romulus Barnes and Lemuel Foster. Edward Beecher 
also became a member, and the first President of Illinois College. 

Time will not permit me to go more into details of the history 
of this Association. Its formation was, however, an era in Home 
Missions in that State and in the West, in their relations both to 
evangelization and to liberal learning ; and very many of the 
greatest and best things which have since been done for the cause, 
are little more than carrying out the conception upon which that 
Association was formed. Illinois College is a child of this Asso- 
ciation, and it is hoped it will hand down the memory and the 
influence of its humble but respectable parent to coming ages : 
lovit it is not its only child. 

There are some peculiar influences which our Seminary has 
■exerted on Home Missions, especially through this Association, 
which it is my duty to point out on this occasion. The young 
men who composed it, and who for the most part founded Illinois 



College, had, at the outset, no denominational aim whatever. 
Their only object was to aid in evangelizing the great valley and 
filling it with the knowledge of the Lord. The whole object to 
which they had devoted their lives would have been accomplished, 
if these ends could have been achieved without hindrance or 
obstruction, under either a Presbyterian or a Congregational or- 
ganization. As the Presbyterian form only was then prevalent 
in all the region where they were to labor, it was doubtless their 
expectation that under that form their life work would be accom- 
plished. 

But scarcely were they settled in their adopted western homes, 
and engaged in looking after those few sheep in the wilderness, 
when they were called to witness things strange and unexpected. 
The controversy which, in their student life, they had seen raging 
around their Alma Mater, and stirring the churches of New Eng- 
land with a healthful agitation, soon broke out in the great Pres- 
byterian church, and shook it, as with a great earthquake, from 
the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. A comparison of this contro- 
versy as it affected the chui'ches of New England, and as it affected 
the great Presbyterian church in the United States, was a revela- 
tion which could be seen by thousands, of the real difference in 
the nature and spirit of the two systems. In the one case it was 
the healthful agitation of quickened intellectual and religious life 
occasioned by earnest argument. In the other it was a great 
ecclesiastical convulsion, carried on chiefly, not by argument, but 
by ecclesiastical trials and the decisions of high ecclesiastical 
courts ; and in a period of less than eight years from the time 
when the controversy crossed the Hudson river, it divided the 
great Presbyterian church into two hostile bodies, each coextensive 
with the domain of American Presbyterianism. 

The effect of this state of things on such minds as had gone 
into the missionary work from the churches of New England, and 
from the influences of this Theological School, can be imagined, 
perhaps, but must have been experienced to be fully understood. 
It produced in many of them a deep and abiding conviction, that 
Presbyterianism was a different thing from what they had taken 
it to be ; that it was not the church of their fathers, nor the church 
of their youth ; and that in it they could not fight the battle of 
life either with freedom or efficiency. The result was, that within 
four years from the arrival of the pioneers of the New Haven Asso- 
ciation on their missionary field, the first three Congregational 
churches of the State were organized, though those three churches 



70 

had then no sister churches nearer than Northeastern Ohio, five 
hundred miles away, and no definite prospect that they ever would 
have. Of one of these churches, that at Quincy, 111., Asa Turner, 
one of the New Haven Association, was the father and the first 
pastor. Another member of the Association, Julian M. Sturtevant, 
took the prominent part in organizing another of the three at 
Jacksonville, ofiiciating at its public recognition, when it had been 
found impossible to obtain for the occasion the services of any 
other ordained minister in all the region, and availing himself of 
the opportunity thus afforded to make a solemn declaration of his 
hearty acceptance of the principles of government and discipline 
upon which that church was organized. 

The relation of the New Haven Association to the great Con- 
gregational revolution which has taken place within the last forty 
years in the regions lying west of the Alleghanies, may be judged 
of from the fact, that though all its members at first, in accord- 
ance with the teaching and example of their fathers, connected 
themselves with the Presbyterian church, only two of them now 
remain in it, and of those who are dead, all had left that connec- 
tion and returned to the order of their fathers, most of them in 
the early years of their ministry. When the true history of Con- 
gregationalism in Illinois is written, it will appear that several 
members of the New Haven Association sustained a relation to it 
truly parental. Among these Asa Turner, Wm. Kirby and Wm. 
Carter are certainly to be reckoned. It should also be mentioned 
in this connection, that if we seek the true parentage of Congrega- 
tionalism in Iowa, we shall find it in Asa Turner of the New 
Haven Association. He is its true " father." 

In 1833, it was no child's play to resist the stream which ever 
since the American revolution had been bearing the vast emigrant 
population of New ^England, as soon as it crossed the Hudson, 
into the Presbyterian church, and to begin the work of forming 
that population, wherever it should settle, into churches preserv- 
ing the faith and polity of the Pilgrim Fathers. The beginning 
of that resistance was certainly made in central Illinois, and by 
men whom our Seminary gave to Home Missions. The greatness 
of the victory which has been won can never be fully appreciated, 
except by those who saw the origin, the revolution, and have been 
providentially compelled, for more than thirty years, to stand in the 
front of the conflict. All those men would solemnly testify, that they 
entered on their Home Missionary work with no plan of Congrega- 
tional propagandism, that an ecclesiastical conflict was the thing fur- 



71 

thest possible from their thoughts, and that they seem to them- 
selves to have only pursued with singleness of heart the one aim 
they had in view from the beginning — to make their lives as effec- 
tive as possible in promoting evangelization and Christian learn- 
ing. The ecclesiastical revolution in which they have borne a 
part they regard as a necessity providentially laid on them, while 
prosecuting the mission on which they were sent in their youth. 
If they are entitled to any credit iii the matter, it is that they 
were among the first to see the indications of Providence, and, in 
circumstances of great difficulty and embarrassment — embarrass- 
ment which in some cases is not yet at an end — to obey them. 

The influence which that band of Home Missionaries has exerted 
on the intellectual, political, moral and religious condition of 
Illinois can never be expressed in statistical tables, or written 
down in history. God only can measure it. By them Illinois 
College was for the most part founded and nurtured in its infancy. 
From the beginning it has contended with great and peculiar 
difficulties and been forced to overcome great obstacles. But in 
all its history it has been a radiating center of civilization, and 
has often shone brightest when contending with the greatest diffi- 
culties. By its three hundred graduates, its more than sixty 
ministers of the gospel, by the eminent civilians, statesmen and 
educators it has trained, by the thousands of pupils other than its 
graduates whom it has partially educated, and in no small degrpe 
formed their characters, by the revivals of religion with which it 
has been blessed, and the hundreds who, in these revivals, have 
been converted to a living faith in the gospel, and by the long, 
steady, unfaltering testimony it has given for intellectual and moral 
culture, freedom of thought, and a pure and enlightened religious 
faith, it has exerted over this great State a vast power for good 
which can never perish. It has not been the least of the cooperat- 
ing causes which have conspired to organize a free and civilized 
community out of the heterogeneous elements which, with ^ 
rapidity hitherto unprecedented in the history of colonization, have 
here been brought together from all parts of the civilized world, 
and from some parts that are not very civilized, and to prepare 
the State to act a most honorable part in the great struggle for 
freedom and social order from which the nation is but now 
emerging. 

That band of missionaries not only founded Illinois College ; 
they largely cooperated in founding numerous churches, among 
which are some both of the Presbyterian and Congregational 



72 

form, that stand out at the present time among the most conspic- 
uous in the State and in the West for their widely extended 
and beneficent influei^ce. They powerfully advocated popular 
education, and exerted no small influence in bringing into being 
the noble public school system with which the State is now blessed. 
They claim for themselves no exclusive credit. They were but a 
handful among the multitudes that have followed their steps and 
have taken efficient part in the good work. But they did lead the 
way ; they did originate the conception to which we have worked, 
and plant some seeds at the right time and in the right place, 
which are yielding and will long yield a blessed harvest. 

The influence of our Seminary is not confined to what this band 
of missionaries have done. It has taken a not undistinguished 
part in all the missionary enterprises which have been prosecuted 
over the vast regions which we have reclaimed from the w^ilds, 
during the last forty years. But I have dwelt especially on this 
one enterprise, because its history is intimately associated with 
my own life, because in it our Seminary made its earliest and 
much its largest single investment, and because the work done by 
this band is most characteristically ours. Our men planned it 
within our walls, and our men long presided over its execution. 
It is preeminently an outgrowth of the intellectual and spiritual 
life of Yale College, and especially of the Theological Depart- 
ment. 

I will only, in closing, express the hope that the spirit of Home- 
missionary enterprise will long prevail within these walls. If the 
time ever comes when the students of this Seminary shall cease to 
regard their field as the world, and the most needy and unevan- 
gelized portioijs of it as having preeminent claims on their talents 
and labors, the glory will have departed. The spirit of Missions^ 
Home and Foreign, is the spirit of Christianity, and can never 
perish till men lose their living faith in the gospel. The heroism 
which leads men to devote their lives to self-denying labors in new 
and destitute fields is not born of mere patriotism or general phil- 
anthropy. It comes from faith in Christ as the Saviour and the 
only Saviour of the world. May that faith be more fervid and 
abundant in these beautiful halls, than in the humbler apartments, 
in which we prayed and studied in the infancy of this Seminary. 



73 



REMINISCENCES OF PROFESSOR FITCH. 



The following paper on the Rev. Eleaz^ T. Fitch, D.D., Pro- ^^^ 

fessor of Divinity in Yale College and preacher in the College 
pnlpit, who for many years gave the instruction in Homiletics in 
the Seminary, was then read by Kev. Oliver E. Daggett, D.D. 
(Class of 1834), of Xew London, Ct.— 

In common wdth many others, I desire to see a full portraiture 
of the character and life of the late Professor Fitch, with an ade- 
quate estimate of the services rendered by him, in his own time, 
as a controversial theologian, as an instructor, especially in homi- 
letics, and as a preacher. Such a work, however, may be for the 
present the less necessary, and might be also the more difficult if 
repetition is to be avoided, in view of the address delivered at his 
funeral, and more recently the sketch of him as a preacher, and 
the notice of his printed sermons, that appeared in the New Eng- 
lander.^ In the brief time here allowed, avoiding ground already 
gone over, I confine this paper to the reminiscences requested for 
this occasion. 

As a preacher he has a prominent place among the recollections 
of my boyhood. More frequently than in later years, he officiated 
by exchange at the North Church in this city, where he was 
always welcomed, especially by a circle of educated men con- 
spicuous in professional or public life, as a youthful yet already 
mature scholar, and an eloquent preacher. My attention as a lad 
could not fail to be excited by the evident satisfaction wath which 
my father saw him come up the aisle, and the enthusiasm signified 
by looks and gestures with which he listened to the hymns and 
sermon. With a susceptibility no doubt quickened by such an 
influence, I eagerly watched the preacher, learning to admire 
before I could be expected to appreciate ; yet the effect showed 
that he had elements of attraction for the young not commonly 
found in ministrations so intellectual and scholarly. I seem to 
myself to have been impressed then as distinctly as afterward with 
his thoughtful aspect, modest, even diffident, carriage, frequent 
hesitancies in utterance arising partly from embarrassment and 
partly from his near-sightedness, the more deliberate pauses at 
the transitions of his discourse, and the pure tones and plaintive 
inflections of his voice. His personal appearance in those days, 
while he was yet under middle age, was in marked contrast with 

* For April, 1811, p. 215, and Oct., 1871, p. 139. 



74 

the patriarchal figure that more than forty years afterward I saw 
so regularly taking a place in the south gallery of the College 
chapel. His person was slender, with something of alertness in 
his movements. His face, then clean-shaven, was fair and smooth, 
not unlike the portraits* we now know, but less florid, wearing 
indeed the pallor more suggestive of study or seclusion than of 
disease. Whatever may have been gained in venerableness as he 
grew old by the full beard when it came to be a fashion, it seemed 
to conceal too much of the face, and especially the delicate expres- 
sions about the large mouth, which even at the time I have re- 
ferred to and still more afterward were to me as a study. The 
blue of his eyes at times grew intense as if he saw things afar off*, 
and often they had a speculative, sometimes a dreamy or what is 
called " absent " look. The more I knew of him the more his 
countenance attracted me by its subtle expressiveness, and changes 
as of lights and shadows. It was habitually thoughtful, the look 
of pensiveness prevailing, verging on melancholy, yet often 
lighted up with sudden gleams of mirthfulness. Many a time as 
I met him in the streets, his face, coupled with an undefinable air 
in his motions, struck me as bearing the motto, ' whether in the 
body or out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth.' 
' Of course after such a preparation it was to me no hardship to 
become a regular attendant on Dr. Fitch's ministrations for the 
four years of College life, even though the chapel itself was if 
possible less inviting than now, and the more attractive part of 
the congregation was further secluded, through somebody's obso- 
lete wisdom, by an aisle in the front of the gallery instead of the 
rear. My impressions of the preacher were now not so much 
first received as deepened and confirmed. The sermons were 
studies in theology and logic and rhetoric. By the peculiar audi- 
ence — younger even than their successors now — they may be said 
to have been not so properly appreciated on their delivery as 
afterward in the remembrance. The preacher often traveled a 
path above us, but we felt some advantage in looking up. Other 
notices have sufficiently set forth his methods and merits as a 
sermonizer. In plans of sermons, as such, it is not too much to 
say he was not excelled, if equaled, by any other preacher of his 
time, or of our own. This in part made him a favorite with theo- 
logical students, who at one time were supposed to imitate him so 
far as even to fall into his faults of manner, so that it w^as said 

* Munson's, 1820, Stone's, 18*56, copied by Flaggy ia the Seminary Library. 



75 

they might be recognized by something like his " hemsy It has • 
not been so distinctly noted, however, that the interest of his ser- 
mons was cumulative, the body of thought even when too abstract 
usually leading to conclusions set forth with so much feeling and 
imagination as to more than make amends with his youthful 
hearers. Hence, too, his sermons, though usually forty minutes 
long, seemed shorter than those of his most distinguished con- 
temporaries, and he won the compliment, by no means common, of 
being said to stop just when the hearers wanted him to go on. 

It is, I believe, the common impression of his admirers that his 
written style, however copious and accurate, had not all the sim- 
plicity and ease that could be desired. There is the impression, 
too, that while he seemed to have almost every element of power 
in the pulpit, yet, whether from constitutional tendency or from 
his training as a student, the critical element ruled too much in his 
preaching ; in a doctrinal sermon, he appeared rather as a cham- 
pion for the truth than as a messenger to the hearers ; it did not 
seem to concern them except as it concerned all ; it was as if he 
stood outside of his subject, instead of being possessed by it ; and 
hence there was not that abandon which gives the preacher who has 
every other gift the utmost mastery over an assembly. The trifth 
there is in this judgment may be the more readily owned in one 
so richly endowed and cultured, and in view of the unquestionable 
good wrought by his ministrations. 

His happiest elocution was in the reading of hymns. From the 
pleasure and skill he showed in all demonstrative reasoning one 
might have supposed that to be his specialty, but poetry and 
music found in him a still more lively susceptibility.* First mas^ 
tering a hymn in every shade of meaning, he rendered it with 
exquisite lyrical expression. There was more music in his utter- 
ance than usually in the singing that followed it. All classes of 
persons felt his excellence in this service. Here I always noted as 
a distinction in his reading, that just before the principal word or 
thought, especially if it were an image, he interposed a delicate 
suspension of the voice, which I conceived to be in his mind prepar- 
atory to the sudden adequate impression, like the momentary 
hush before the unveiling of a statue. When I thus spoke of it to 
him a few years ago, he at once recognised the fact and the explan- 
ation. It may be instanced in the line : 

" Around the second — death." 

* His scientific acquaintance with music may be seen in his article on the 
Organ, New Englander, vol. viii, p. 218. and his lecture on Music, yet to be 
published. 



76 

And in another line : 

"And faith stands — ^leaning on His word." 

It is known that when, according to the ancient usage, he took his 
turn in conducting evening prayers, he spent much time in pre- 
paring for this as well as for other parts of the service. Fastidious 
in selection, he scanned and tried every stanza and line, omitting 
or contriving to slight or soften infelicities that to him more than 
to most readers savored of the irreverent or the ludicrous. He 
used to speak sportively of one hymn that might be read for its 
evangelical sentiment, but the last stanza had to be omitted, — and 
I have often thought that a tyrant, knowing the idiosyncracies of 
his subjects, could not punish him for a misdemeanor more effect- 
ively than by obliging him to read that same stanza in public 
worship : 

" So Sampson, when his hair was lost, 

Met the PhiHstine to his cost ; 

Shook his vain limbs with sad surprise, 

Made feeble fight, and lost his eyes."* 

It used to be said that Dr. Fitch did not excel, or was even 
wanting, in public prayer. I have different impressions here. 
Certainly his prayers were not eloquent, even in the sense in which 
that term may be legitimately used of such a service ; nor had 
they the fervor or unction that is desirable ; but they were marked 
with so much simplicity and propriety, and such profound rever- 
ence and tender awe, that a devout worshipper might well follow 
them. Without the hesitation that often broke the flow of his ad- 
dress to the people, they yet only came short of faltering, as with 
a tremulous sense of the august Presence invoked. They breathed, 
I thought, more of the piety of the man than any of his more 
admired services. 

His hearing of recitations of the Senior class, as in the "Evidences 
of Christianity," seemed to embarrass or agitate him more than 
the duties of the pulpit. We remember how gently and diffidently 
he propounded questions. Clasping together the leaves of the 
text-book, he would suddenly spin them open from end to end, as 
if venting nervous excitement. Such habits of mind might not be 
expected to command order among young men, yet in my class 
there was more decorous attention shown him than to some bolder 
teachers. In this department his modest worth inspired respect. 

For many years before and after my membership in the Semin- 

* Watts' Hymns, B. I, 15. Dwight's Coll. Hymns, 140. 



77 

ary the attention of candidates for the ministry, as of the public, 
was drawn chiefly to that department which most concerned itself 
with the controversies of the time, yet Dr. Fitch's course in 
homiletics was felt to have as much merit as any on that subject 
in any Seminary. I have not learned whether he ever completed 
all that he had projected, and at this distance of time cannot 
judge how far his lectures were an original contribution to that 
part of sacred literature ; but we recognized the same mind as in 
his sermons ; the principles of that sort of architecture were ex- 
pounded by a master-builder with the same exact method and 
sharp analysis which he so often exemplified. Here too he felt a 
freedom and room for humor not allowed in his more public duties. 
We were drawn to him by his candor and kindness. He listened 
most favorably to our questions and plans. To this day I remem- 
ber how his attention to one train of thought enhanced to me its 
value and his good will. Indeed, he was always everywhere one 
of the best of listeners. The tendency of courses of instruction in 
homiletics to subject preaching to too rigid forms deserves recon- 
sideration. Dr. J. W. Alexander, in his " Thoughts on Preaching," 
complains of the influence on himself, again and again wishing he 
could make a sermon as if he had never heard a lecture or rule 
about it. Apart from this consideration, the only question that 
has occurred to me as to the effect of Dr. Fitch's instruction and 
example in this department, is whether the exhaustive analysis to 
which he was so partial does not favor needless amplification. 
To an inquiry of this sort he answered that he would dwell only 
on those points of a text or subject that seemed to require it, 
barely indicating others as comprehended within the scheme of 
thought. But there remains in practice the danger of making too 
much account of such secondary points in deference to mere 
arrangement. 

It has seemed to me that his contributions to scientific theology, 
in what is known as the " New Haven controversy," have not held 
as high a place as they deserve. He was not an independent 
leader of theological thought, like Dr. Taylor, whose eye gleamed 
so suddenly at familiar watch-words ; not, like him, a polemic by 
instinct and training on that field, saying " among the trumpets, 
Ha, ha !" But certainly among the ablest of the discussions then 
rife in this quarter must be reckoned his printed sermon on the 
voluntary character of sin, and particularly his article on the 
"Divine Permission of Sin,"* maintaining what was called the 

* Christian Spectator, vol. iv, p. 614. 



78 

" New Haven doctrine" on that subject, a doctrine, however, 
much older than this Seminary. Students may be still referred to 
the latter, if only for the illustrations drawn from the full "basin" 
and the " metallic clock." 

A few years later, as one of the two compilers of the Connec- 
ticut " Psalms and Hymns," I enjoyed another kind of intercourse 
with him as one of the committee to whom the work was submit- 
ted in its successive stages for their sanction.* His poetic enthus- 
iasm and fastidious taste qualified him for such a service. He 
evidently enjoyed, as we certainly did, the interviews thus brought 
about, at once social and literary. His manner, as in common 
conversation with friends, animated but broken and sometimes 
confused, was a contrast to the judicial calmness of President Day, 
who also bore his part on the committee. Entering with zest into 
our consultations, he relished and helped to settle every nice ques- 
tion of grammar or rhetoric, as well as of doctrine. His was the 
only successful attempt, of the many that have been made, to rid 
our hymnology of an intolerable solecism in a well known hymn, 
without innovating upon the figure or the rhyme, as in the couplet 
adopted, — 

" I'U go to Jesus, though, my sin 
Like mountains round me close."f 

I remember, among the minute questions to be determined in a 
session of the committee at his house, was one regarding a line of 
Watts variously printed — 

"I'll speak thy word though kings should hear,":}: 

— whether the auxiliaries should not be in like grammatical 
forms — which he entered into with great interest, putting exam- 
ples of the different constructions, with the phrase, " If I say, I will 
speak," &c. After dinner he told us mirthfully that his wife, who 
was ill in an adjoining room, had been disturbed by overhearing 
him say emphatically, " I will speak," fearing that, as Dr. Tyler 
was on the committee, the two divines had fallen into an angry 
theological controversy. I recall sundry notes to the compilers, 
in his flowing penmanship, with alternative words, marginal hints, 
and quiet pleasantries. Six pieces in that collection are from his 
hand, three of them versions of Psalms,|| and three hymns,§ one of 

* Of this committee Dr. Bacon is now the only surviving member. 

f Originally (by E. Jones) " Hath, like a mountain, rose." 

X Watts' version of Ps. 119, part 15th. 

I Ps. XXXV, 1 ; xli, 1 ; cxxxiv, 2. § Hy. 533, 534, 638. 



79 

the latter, the marriage hyran, believed to be the best on that sub- 
ject. The use of the two designed for the close of worship has 
often brought him to mind. Indeed hymns, whether as " said or 
sung," were for him a liturgical refreshment, and through him for 
others. One of his stanzas recurs to me to-day. The last time 
I heard his voice in public was at one of these anniversaries, when 
he spoke with unusual fullness and freedom of the attractions and 
prospects of the kingdom of God, himself then awaiting its sum- 
mons to " go up higher," which he has since heard and obeyed ; 
and now for him and for ourselves we may adopt that strain : 

" Through changes, bright or drear, 

We would Thy wOl pursue, 
And toil to spread Thy kingdom here. 

Till we its glory view." 



VISIT TO THE GRATES OP THE DECEASED PROFESSORS. 

At the hour of noon the Alumni voted to proceed in a body to 
the graves of the deceased Professors and others whose memory 
is closely associated with the history of the Seminary. Under the 
guidance of Rev. Dr. Bacon, who related his reminiscences of the 
departed, vrith whom he had been intimately associated, as he 
read the inscription upon their tomb-stones with the strikingly 
characteristic passage at the close of each, the procession was first 
conducted to the in closure in which the remains of Dr. Taylor and 
Dr. Beecher rest side by side, a memorial both of their strong per- 
sonal friendship and their agreement in theological opinions. On 
the monuments over their graves are the following inscriptions : 

NATHANIEL WILLIAM TAYLOR, 

BORN AT N KW MILFORD, 

JUNE 23, 1786. 

GRADUATED AT YALE COLLEGE 

1807. 

ORDAINED PASTOR OF THE FIRST 

CHURCH IN NEW HAVEN, 1812. 

ELECTED DWIGHT PROFESSOR OF 

DIDACTIC THEOLOGY IN YALE COLLEGE, 

1822. 

DIED MARCH 10, 1858. 

OH HOW I LOVE THY LAW. 



80 

LYMAN BEECHER 
1775-1863. 

Passing by the adjacent graves of Dr. Koah Webster, author of 
the American Dictionary of the English Language (died 1843), 
and Prof. Denison Olmsted, of Yale College (died 1859), the pro- 
cession next halted before the monument of 

JOSIAH WILLARD GIBBS 

PROFESSOR OF 

SACRED LITERATURE 

IN YALE COLLEGE 

FROM 1824 TO 1861. 

BORN IN SALEM, MASS. 

APRIL 30, 1790. 

DIED MAR. 25, 1861. 

NOW T KNOW IN PART, BUT THEN SHALL 
I KNOW EVEN AS ALSO 1 AM KNOWN. 



AS A SCHOLAR 

CAUTIOUS, PENETRATING, 

ERUDITE. 

AS A TEACHER 

CONSIDERATE, ZEALOUS, 

POND OF YOUNG MEN. 

AS A CHRISTIAN 

BOLD IN DEFENCE OP THE RIGHT, 

AN EARNEST LOVER OF FREEDOM, 

TRUE, GENTLE, DEVOUT. 

The next tomb-stone before which the procession stood wag 
that of the late President Day, who was not only the official head 
of the Theological Department till his resignation of the Presi- 
dency of Yale College, in 1846, but from the first a liberal con- 
tributor to its funds. His monument bears the following inscrip- 
tion : 



81 
JEREMIAH DAY, 

PRESIDENT OF YALE COLLEGE IMDCOOXVII — XLVI. 

BORN AUGUST III MDCCLXXIII. 

DIED AUGUST XXII iVJDCCCLXVII. 

AGED NINETY-FOUR YEARS. 

IF THINE EYE BE SINGLE, 

i 

THY WHOLE BODY SHALL BE FULL OF LIGHT. 

At a short distance on the right rest the remains, over which a 
tomb-stone is soon to be placed, of 

ELEAZAR THOMPSON FITCH, 

LIVINGSTON PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY 
IN YALE COLLEGE 

FROM 1817 TO 1852. 

BORN IN NEW HAVEN, JAN. 1, 1791. 

DIED 1\ NEW HAVEN, JAN. 31, 1871, 

AGED 80 YEARS. 

After passing by the grave of the late Augustus R. Street, the 
largest contributor as yet to the funds of the Theological De- 
partment (died 1866), the procession halted at the tomb of the 
late President Dwight (died 1817, aged 65), who had looked for- 
ward with deep interest, and given his great influence, to the es- 
tablishment of a distinct Theological Department in the College. 
Here the Alumni united in singing the well known hymn com- 
posed by him, beginning with the words, 

" I love Thy kingdom Lord, 
The house of Thine abode, 
The Church our blest Redeemer saved 
"With His own precious blood." 
6 



82 

The last tomb visited was that of the indefatigable friend of the 
Seminary, and a large donor to its funds, as well as an instructor 
in it the last twenty-one years of his life, 

OHAUNCEY A. GOODRICH, 

PROFESSOR 

OF THE 

PASTORAL CHARGE 

YALE COLLEGE. 

DIED 

FEB. 25, 1860, 

AGED 70. 

NOT SLOTHFUL Ii\ BUSINESS: 

FERVENT IN SPIRIT: 

SERVING THE LORD. 

The hour thus spent will never be forgotten by those who thus 
in company recalled their recollections of the eminent and faith- 
ful men who now rest from their labors and whose works do follow 
them. 



On re-assembling in the afternoon, the first paper read was one 
by Prof. James Hadley (Class of 18?5j5), of Yale College, com- 
memorative of 

PROFESSOR GIBBS AS A SCHOLAR AND TEACHER. 

In trying to bring before our minds the image of Professor 
Gibbs, we may fitly begin with that which was the mainspring of 
his intellectual life, his deep, constant, wide-reaching love of truth 
and knowledge. This feeling was by no means confined to the 
studies, biblical and linguistic, to which his strength was mainly 
devoted. In early years he felt a strong attraction to mathemat- 
ical science ; and it was not without a struggle that he yielded to 
the call of duty, bidding him withdraw from studies which he 
had found so fascinating, and in which he was so well fitted to 
achieve success. But knowledge of every sort was always welcome 
and congenial to his mind. At the meetings of the Connecticut 
Academy, which he attended regularly for many years, he listened 
with pleasure to scientific communications on the most various 



i 



83 

subjects, and evinced the keenness of his interest by his numerous 
and intelligent questions. His mind, however, was not one of 
those that readily accept whatever is put forward as true, though 
plausible in appearance or supported by high authority. The 
critical impulse was strong within him. He must search into all 
opinions and beliefs, and find the ultimate foundations on which 
they rest, and try them at the bar of his own judgment, — not, 
certainly, from any overweening confidence in its decisions, but 
simply because he could not do otherwise. But no belief or 
opinion, on trial for its life, could ask for a more impartial tribunal. 
His mind was open to argument from every quarter. He dreaded 
nothing more than to deny to any consideration one atom of the 
weight that fairly belonged to it. Of that spirit of dogmatism 
which imports into the search for truth an alien and disturbing 
element of will, he had not the faintest tinge. Even his own 
opinions he held in some sort as provisional, until a greater weight 
of adverse argument should require their surrender ; and mean- 
time kept them under careful surveillance, lest they should unduly 
bias his judgment. This consciousness of possible error in his 
opinions led him often to speak of them with a hesitation and 
indecision which did not do justice to their intrinsic soundness, or 
even to his own conviction of their truth, and which failed to 
satisfy the demands of a practical world for positive categorical 
statement. But if this indecision must be looked upon as a fault, 
it was a fault nearly alliedvio the highest virtues, to his unaffected 
modesty of nature and td his genuine scientific spiiit. Closely 
connected with these was also his catholic liberality of temper 
and tolerance of dissenting opinion, which did not in his case 
spring from any indifference to truth, but from a just appreciation 
of the difficulties and dangers that beset the search for it. In 
this search his mind was engaged with an activity that knew 
little pause or relaxation. He was always at work on some point 
or question of scientific interest. One who met him in the street 
could see by his abstracted air and his somewhat uncertain walk 
that he was studying out a knotty problem of philology or ex- 
egesis. The extent and variety of these studies are attested by a 
host of brief but pithj' and instructive articles, scattered wide 
through the newspapers and magazines of the land, — articles in 
which the results of much thinking were embodied in a few terse 
sentences with a perfect logical order and a carious exactness of 
statement. Order was, indeed, a necessity of his nature; and 
perhaps many of his essays were prompted by a desire, not more 



84 

to communicate information to others, than to give shape and 
system to his own views of the subject. 

It is needless to say here that Professor Gibbs was a profound 
student of the Scriptures, both of the Old and the New Testament. 
In his exegesis, the soberness and caution which belonged to his 
nature were deepened by his feeling of the sacred character and 
momentous interest of the texts to be interpreted. Yet, fully as 
he accepted the divine origin of the Bible, he held that it must be 
explained by the same principles and methods as are applicable 
to human compositions. He was the strenuous supporter of a 
historical exegesis, insisting that the true meaning of the text is 
that which it must naturally have conveyed to an intelligent 
reader in the time and country of its first appearance. To all 
systems which impose on the text a meaning diiferent from this 
natural one, — to the theories of double sense, — to a spiritualizing 
interpretation, — to the analogy of faith or Scripture, as a rule of 
exegesis, — he was a mild but inflexible opponent. Though he 
studied both with the most conscientious thoroughness, his interest 
probably was stronger in the Old Testament than in the New. 
The venerable antiquity of its literature, its nearness to the begin- 
nings of history and religion, its oriental features of thought and 
diction, — all had their effect upon a mind more susceptible than 
many supposed to such influences. In its language he was per- 
fectly at home : his lexicographic labors, as translator, reviser, 
and abridger of Gesenius, had given him a minute and familiar 
knowledge of the biblical Hebrew. With English versions of the 
Bible he was well acquainted. The Authorized Version, especially, 
he had made an object of close and careful study. He had ob- 
served its peculiarities of style and language with keen attention. 
He appreciated its strength ; but w^as at the same time sensible of 
its weaknesses, — the incongruities, obscurities, inaccuracies, that 
disfigure it. With that popular bibliolatry which sees in King 
James' Bible the matchless model, the almost inspired ideal, of a 
perfect Bible version, he had the smallest sympathy. He would 
certainly have welcomed any prospect of a systematically and 
judiciously amended English Bible. 

But Professor Gibbs was not exclusively a student of the bibli- 
cal languages. He was a student of language, of comparative 
philology and general linguistics. It may not be too much to 
say, that during the latter years of his life this was to him the 
leading scientific interest. The progress which he saw made in 
this department of science filled him with wonder and delight. It 



85 

was not only a new world of knowledge conquered for him, but 
the means of conquering others as broad and fair. It was with 
this spirit that he welcomed the Indo-European grammar of Bopp 
and his successors, and the S5''stem of a general philosophical 
syntax constructed by the genius of K. F. Becker. The enthu- 
siasm which these advances in science wakened in his mind may 
not be known to all even of his students, as it only seldom broke 
through the crust of his reserve. But it was seen in meetings of 
the Oriental Society, on more than one occasion, when, provoked 
by some piece of wild speculation, he spoke with an excited energy 
very unlike his usual calmness, protesting that the day for such 
philologizing was past, that there was now a science of philology, 
with established principles and methods, which could not be 
ignored or neglected. But the enthusiasm with which he pursued 
his linguistic studies may be best shown by quoting a few sen- 
tences which interrupt a long and (as many might think) dry 
article on the Indo-European case-system. "There can be no 
exercise in the whole business of instruction more useful to the 
mind than the analysis of sentences in the concentrated light of 
grammar and logic. It brings one into the sanctuary of human 
thought. All else is but standing in the outer court. He who is 
without may indeed offer incense, but he who is within worships and 
adores. It is here that the man of science, trained to close thought 
and clear vision, surveys the various objects of his study with a 
more expanded view and a more discriminating mind. It is here 
that the interpreter, accustomed to the force and freshness of 
natural language, is prepared to explain God's revealed word with 
more power and accuracy. It is here that the orator learns to 
wield with a heavier arm the weapon of his warfare. It is here 
that every one who loves to think beholds the deep things of the 
human spirit, and learns to regard with holy reverence the sacred 
symbols of human thought." 

It remains to say a few words of Professor Gibbs as a teacher. 
It must be owned that he was deficient in some qualities that con- 
tribute to success in teaching. He had little fluency of utterance 
or facility of communication. Nor had he any special aptitude 
for putting himself in the mental position of his pupils, so as to 
apprehend their difficulties and perplexities. Hij power of im- 
pression was weakened by his avoidance of positive statements. 
Beside which, a natural shyness kept him from throwing himself 
with full abandon into his work. And yet we do not hesitate to 
say that he exerted a deep and very valuable influence as a teach- 



86 

er. He had a genuine desire to teach. He wanted to impress 
the minds of young men, of those who were themselves to be the 
instructors of the people : he wished to give them right views of 
the Bible and the way to interpret it. He sought to correct the 
crude, superficial notions which too many brought with them to 
the Seminary. He sought to form a taste for something deeper 
and better than the easy platitudes of popular commentaries. His 
success did not always correspond to his wishes ; and once at least 
he was driven to exclaim : " Will the time never come when theo- 
logical students shall get beyond the Sabbath-school stage of 
instruction ?" He was always faithful in efforts for the advance- 
ment of his pupils. He did not shrink from the necessary, but 
fearfully wearisome, labor of grammatical drilling. He was on 
the watch for new varieties of exercise, new modes of training, 
which might awaken a new interest in his class. To questions, 
when they were not captious, he was always accessible : the intel- 
ligent asker had the key to his rich accumulations of thought and 
learning. But we may say that in the man himself lay his best 
and most instructive lessons. To be with him and to watch the 
working of his mind was itself an education. His disposition to 
look for principles — his watchfulness against insidious errors — his 
readiness to welcome light from every source — his perfect impar- 
tiality of judgment — his independence of thought, unyielding to 
authority, and submissive only to reason — these and such as these 
were the lessons which he imparted to capable and willing pupils, 
lessons which if any man has learned, he may be justly called a 
scholar. 

But I must stop here, though the temptation is strong to go on. 
To those who never knew Professor Gibbs, I could not give an 
adequate conception of the man without taking more time than 
can be allowed me here. To those of us who knew him, as an 
instructor and a friend, there is no need of saying much to recall an 
image that we venerate, a memory that we hold dear and sacred. 
In this simple, modest, deep-thinking, earnestly searching scholar, 
we recognize a worthy member of the noble triumvirate who laid 
the foundations of our Theological Department. And we trust 
that his spirit — of single-minded devotion to truth, of antipathy to 
all dogmatism^nd arbitrary thinking, of a reverent Christian faith 
united with loyalty to reason and science — will always be the 
spirit of this Institution. 



87 



LIFE AND SERVICES OF PROFESSOR GOODRICH. 

Rev. I. N. Tarbox, D. D. (Class of 1844), Secretary of the 
American Education Society, Boston, Mass., then read the fol- 
lowing paper on the life and services of Rev. Chauncey A. Good- 
rich, D.D., late Professor of the Pastoral Charge : 

The four men whom we gratefully and affectionately commemo- 
rate here to day, were, all of them, of a most marked individuality. 
They were as far as possible from being modeled after a common 
pattern or after each other. They kept their connection with the 
College and the Seminary for a long period of time, ranging in 
the different instances from thirty-five to more than fifty years. 
During my collegiate and seminary course, these men were all in 
the full strength of their life — in the very perfection of a matured 
manhood — and they wrought in their several departments, each 
after his own manner, but in kind and loving harmony, one with 
another. 

And I may say, in passing, that from a somewhat large acquaint- 
ance with the interior life of our colleges and theological schools 
here in New England, I am impressed with the fact that the men, 
who, for the last thirty or forty years, have been associated in the 
board of instruction in the several departments of this University, 
have walked more lovingly together, lived on terms of more 
friendly intercourse and companionship, than is usual under the 
like conditions elsewhere. 

Professor Goodrich, of whom I am to say a few words on this 
occasion, was bom in this city in the year 1790. With the excep- 
tion of a single year in the ministry at Middletown, his home was 
here. As student, tutor, professor in the College, and professor in 
the Seminary, he held his connection with the institution more 
than fifty years. During my own collegiate course, he was pro- 
fessor of rhetoric in the College ; but was transferred in the year 
of my graduation (1839) to the Theological Seminary, so that I 
met him again as an instructor, on returning to study theology 
here, from 1841-1844. Here he remained until his death in 1860, 
having filled out very nearly the round period of threescore 
years and ten. 

In his long connection with this institution, his labors were 
abundant and various. Even while tutor, from 1812-14, and 
when not yet twenty-four years of age, he prepared and published 
his Greek grammar, which passed through a large number of edi- 



88 

tions, and held its connection with colleges and schools for a long 
course of years. Looking into the catalogue of Yale College for 
1843, which I happen to have by me as I write, I find that the 
students entering the College at that time were examined in 
GoodricK'B or Sophocles' Greek Grammar, This was the door-way 
probably, through which most of us, who have passed middle life, 
were admitted into the mysteries oi the Greek tongue. 

In the year 1829, when the old "Christian Spectator,'' (which 
had been started in 1819 as a monthly) had completed its 10th 
volume, Professor Goodrich established and for some years edited 
the " Quarterly Christian Spectator," — -a work of ampler propor- 
tions and larger scope. This periodical was exceedingly full of 
vitality in those years, when theological questions filled so large 
a place in the land, and especially in this little commonwealth. 

But besides this, in the year 1828, and onward through his 
whole life afterward, he had a perpetual burden resting upon him 
in connection with the various editions of Webster's Dictionary. 
That great work as we now have it, is the matured growth of more 
than half a century of careful literary labor, and many minds and 
many hands have lent their aid, especially in these later years. 
But for more than thirty years, beginning with the time above- 
nanied, when Dr. Webster himself had reached the age of seventy, 
and might naturally seek exemption from toil, the guiding, direct- 
ing, organizing mind in this learned efibrt, was that of his son- 
in-law Professor Goodrich. This is a kind of literary labor which 
makes, for the time being, but little show in the world. A man 
who writes a sensational novel, will have his name blown abroad 
among the people in a much more flattering manner. When Dr. 
Johnson had finished his dictionary and was ready to publish, in 
his preface he describes the man who makes a book of this kind, 
" as the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to 
remove rubbish and obstructions." "Every other author" — he 
tells us with a mournful sadness in his tone — " every other author 
may aspire to praise ; the lexicographer can only hope to escape 
reproach." But time brings its compensations. The sensational 
novel in most cases, is read and laid upon the shelf, and the author 
half-forgotton. But the good dictionary endures, and is the hand- 
book of generations. In addition to these long continued cares, 
he prepared and published, in 1852, liis work entitled " Select 
British Eloquence." His life-long studies in this department, and 
the attractive lectures which he had, for so many years, delivered 



89 

to the students, enabled him to furnish a book of this order, which 
is exceedingly choice and judicious in its selections. 

Durino- all these years, there was also an immense amount of 
miscellaneous writing, such as is naturally called for from a man 
of his taste, and holding his position. 

As an officer and instructor in the College and in the Seminary, 
he brouo"ht with him some elements that were peculiar to himself, 
and which were of the utmost importance, as pertaining to the 
relisrious life of the institution. Quick in his religjious sensibili- 
ties — keenly alive to all divine things — nice in his discernment of 
times and seasons, there was, perhaps, no man on the ground so 
truly wakeful and sympathetic in all that pertained to the spiritual 
■welfare of the students as he. There was no one to whom a 
young man, under conviction of sin, and sensible of his lost estate, 
would more naturally go lor counsel, for comfort, for aid, than to 
him. 

We can many of us remember with what true Christian joy, he 
hailed any tokens of the special presence of the Spirit among us 
— how ready he was to labor and to pray, to render service up to 
the full measure of his strength, and even beyond his strength. 

So thoroughly had Prof. Goodrich identified himself with the 
religious history of the (College that he was pointed out, more 
than thirty years ago, as the lit person to prepare for the public 
the " Narrative of Revivals of Religion in Yale College." This 
was published in the American Quarterly Register in 1838. At 
that time Prof. B. B. Edwards had the main charge of the Regis- 
ter ; and he was drawing from several New England Colleges 
similar narratives, showing the religious history of these institu- 
tions. A few of the closing sentences of the paper furnished by 
Prof. Goodrich will help to bring him back to us again — to show 
us the character of his mind and his heart. 

He says : " Thus in the space of ninety-six years from the 
great revival of 1741, this College has been favored with twenty 
distinct effusions of the Holy Spirit, of which three were in the 
last century and seventeen in the present. In sketching their his- 
tory, I have dwelt on the circumstances connected with the origin 
and progress of the most important, because the chief value of 
a statement like this, aside from the desire it may awaken for a 
repetition of such blessings, must consist in the knowledge it 
affords of those means of promoting revivals on which God has 
set the seal of his approbation. To estimate the good which has 
resulted to the Church and the world from the dispensations of 



90 

renewing grace, the numbers which have already been added to 
the society of the redeemed, and will yet be added by their widen- 
ing influence to the end of time, exceeds the limit of human cal- 
culation, and must be left for the disclosures of the final day. 
But in view of what we can know on this subject, who will not 
join in fervent thankgivings to Almighty God, for these glori- 
ous manifestations of redeeming mercy ? Who will not unite in 
the fervent prayer, that the spirit of David Brainekd may 
rest for ages to come on the institution, where he first labored 
in a revival of religion, and may be extended to every other seat 
of learning throughout all our land ?" 

Those of us who were in the College between thirty and forty 
years ago, can well remember the man as he then appeared to us, 
— his quick elastic step — his alert movements, — his kind and 
brightly beaming eye — his graceful carriage — the symmetrical 
beauty of his face, and more than all, his sympathetic and loving 
heart, making him easily accessible to the student. 

The men who filled the professorships in the various depart- 
ments of the University at that time and for a few years later are 
now gone, all gone, with the single exception of Pres. Woolsey 
(long may he be spared to us). Silliman, Kingsley, Olmsted, Fitch, 
Goodrich, Stanley, Larned, Taylor, Gibbs, Daggett, Ives, Hooker, 
Knight, Beers, TuUy, with President Day, the venerable and 
beloved, have all departed, and the places which knew them in 
these academic halls and shady walks know them no more. 

" Take them, Death, and bear away, 
Whatever thou can'st call thy own ; 
Thine image stamped upon this clay 
Doth give thee that and that alone I 

Take them, Grave, and let them lie, 

Folded upon thy narrow shelves. 
As garments by the soul laid by. 

And only precious to ourselves. 

Take them, Great Eternity! 

Our little life is but a gust, 
That bends the branches of thy tree. 

And trails its blossoms in the dust." 

But as we gather back to this old familiar ground, to us the 
dead are the most living realities. After the grave has taken all 
it can, the great essentials yet remain. 

And still, the absence of all these familiar forms and faces 
makes us, who return hither, realize, as we can hardly realize else- 



91 

where, that we too are " strangers and sojourners on the earth as 
were all our fathers." The slow procession moves on, and the 
years will not be many before others in their turn will take up the 
story which we now repeat. Happy if we may leave behind us, 
as these departed ones have left, the record of a good work done, 
and well done ! 

Yet while we tenderly remember the dead, let us not, in a spirit 
of repining, imagine that all that is good on earth is in the tomb. 
Though— 

" the days darken round [us] and the years, 

Among new men, strange faces, other minds," 

Yet let us cheerfully work on, and believe that God's great 
promises will be fulfilled by new agencies and new men. 

" The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
A.nd Grod fulfills himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 

The removal of the old generations, which have done their work, and 
the bringing in new and fresh forces, is God's great method of 
progress. We ourselves in our visit here, at this time, have seen 
enough to convince us, that though the old has past, or is rapidly 
passing — though former issues are dead and well nigh forgotten — 
yet there are here on the ground men who meet the issues of 
the living present, and are doing faithfully the work which God 
assigns them to do in their day and generation. Let us look forth 
with hope into the future. In spite of all the adverse and destruc- 
tive currents that are running, let us still hold firmly by the great 
fact that " God's kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and his 
dominion endureth throughout all generations." 



DE. TAYLOR AND HIS THEOLOGY. 

The closing tribute to the memory of the deceased Professors, 
in the programme of exercises previously arranged, was then made 
by Rev. Noah Porter, D.D. (Class of 1836), President of Yale 
College, who spoke in substance as follows : 

The character of Dr. Taylor has already been treated of so fully 
by others that little remains to be added by me. Dr. Bacon and 
Prof. Fisher, Dr. Thompson and Prof. Atwater, Dr. Dutton and 
Prof. Martin have all written of him as a man and as a theologian, 
from different points of view. The most of these writers were 
pupils of Dr. Taylor and had been members of the Yale Theologi- 
cal Seminary. Some of them have expressed their more or less 



92 

positive dissent from more or fewer of his teachings, but all unite in 
rendering the most honorable testimony to his high character as a 
theologian and as a man. It is for me to gather up and present a 
few considerations such as may be suitable for this occasion. 

The eminent Neander observes in his well known discussion of 
the doctrines of Augustine and Pelagius, that the theological sys- 
tem of every great thinker is more or less affected by his own 
spiritual experience, and is in a certain sense a reflex of that ex. 
perience. Though the remark is open to many exceptions, and 
should be qualified in its interpretation and application, it contains 
a wide-reaching and important truth. I introduce it to call your 
attention to the fact that the prominent element in Dr. Taylor's 
personal religious history was his conviction of the ill desert and 
the evil of his own sin and of that the human race. I have it from 
the best authority that the experiences which marked the begin- 
ning of his positive religious life were most distinct and over- 
whelming in respect to this point. Any man who has ever heard 
him speak on this subject, whether in public or in private, could 
not doubt that he uttered his own strong and fervent convictions, 
when he spoke so often and so feelingly as he was wont to do, of 
*' the exceeding sinfulness of sin." But if sin is inexcusable and ill 
■deserving, then the government of God is most reasonable, and 
if it is reasonable, it is not a government of force, whether manifest 
or unconscious. It is not in any sense physical ; but it is a govern- 
ment of motives which address themselves to the conscience, i. e., it 
is preeminently a moral government. If sin is an evil and bitter 
thing, this moral government of God is rightful in its authority^ 
This involves the consequence that God is sincere in all the mani-^ 
festations of his character, in his commands and invitations, in his 
threatenings and promises. It follows that man is in an eminent 
and emphatic sense responsible ; but to be responsible he must be 
free in some peculiar and real way which shall make possible the 
existence of sin as an inexcusable and personal work of man, the 
permission of which is consistent with the moral perfection of God- 
It may be contended that in holding these views he only followed 
the direction taken by the divines of the Arminian school. This 
I am not in the least disposed to deny. The suggestion might be 
pertinent that perhaps these divines have from the first rendered 
an important service to Christian truth in emphasizing these ethical 
foundation truths. In respect, ho wever, to the extent and desperate 
character of sin when left to itself, and in respect also to the necessity 
of Christ's redemptive interposition, Dr. Taylor went altogether 



93 

beyond the leading Arminian divines. His views on these points, 
although they were thoroughly ethical, were in respect to positive- 
ness and emphasis distinctively and characteristically Calvinistic. 
But he was a Calvinist also in many other particulars. At least 
he thought himself to be a Calvinist, and I have no doubt sincerely 
and honestly, and in every feature which he regarded as perma- 
nently distinctive of the Calvinistic system. First of all he be- 
lieved in the doctrine of the divine purposes. He accepted most 
heartily and emphasized most positively the truth that the decrees 
of God extend to every event — " sin not excepted ;" that the pur- 
poses of God include " whatsoever comes to pass." He be- 
lieved in original sin, as including man's oneness with Adam 
and his hereditary depravity. He believed that the sin of our first 
parents was more than the first act of apostasy in the history of the 
race viewed chronologically, having such a representative character, 
as that the race " sinned in him and fell with him in the first trans- 
gression." He also believed that after the first transgression, the 
race came into being under new circumstances, inheriting a consti- 
tution which might properly be termed depraved and corrupt; 
but in such a sense as to be entirely consistent with the personal 
responsibility of each individual. Dr. Taylor also believed in the 
necessity of supernatural grace for man's recovery and salvation, 
i. e., for the beginning and completion of the work of redemption. 
Especially did he insist on the doctrine of sovereign grace ; claim- 
ing above all the men of his generation, and standing conspicuous 
among all the schools of Calvinists in this country, in teaching 
that in this doctrine lies the power and success of the gospel, and 
that without it the efficiency of the gospel is more or less weak- 
ened. Not only did he thus insist, but he preached this doctrine 
— boldly, pungently, and efiectively, in all its applications, to the 
very end of his life. 

These were the views of Dr. Taylor upon leading questions in 
theology. To develop, defend, and teach them, was the w^ork of 
his life. They were the subjects of constant thought, of never- 
tiring explanation and illustration, of bold and eloquent exposition, 
and of heroic and spirited defence as long as he lived. It should 
ever be remembered, however, that he developed and maintained 
them preeminently as his own personal convictions, seeking first 
of all to satisfy his c>wn ceaseless and earnest enquiry, " What is 
truth ?" Having found the truth, as he thought, for himself, he 
labored most earnestly to set it forth to others in a similar spirit, 
not i^reeminently as a partizan, or as the founder of a school, but 



94 

" by manifestation of the truth, commending himself to every 
man's conscience in the sight of God." 

His efforts to adjust these truths to one another necessarily 
made him a philosopher and a metaphysician. But he became a 
metaphysician from the noblest practical motives, that he might 
accomplish the highest practical ends. He was not moved by any 
ambition to become the most subtile of thinkers. He despised and 
abhorred the display of acuteness or originality for their own sakes. 
Philosophy in its highest achievements and its consummate refine- 
ments, in his view was only worthy of respect so far as it ac- 
cords with the convictions of common sense and commends 
itself to the judgments of common men. To be a metaphysical 
thinker, in his estimation, was only to be an accurate, a clear, and 
a profound thinker. But theology so far as it is a science, like 
every other science must, in his view, be metaphysical. He held 
that every creed, from the Apostles' Creed to the Catechisms of 
the Westminster Assembly, is more or less metaphysical, and that 
the so-called Biblical Theology must contain more or fewer meta- 
physical elements. From Augustine down to Dean Stanley, it is 
and must be true that every Christian theologian, so far as he is a 
theologian, is necessarily a metaphysician. 

Dr. Taylor was trained in the New England theology, and this 
theology deserves a word of explanation in order to a just esti- 
mate of Dr. Taylor's aims and services. This theology was a nat- 
ural outgrowth of the so-called New Philosophy which began with 
Descartes, and was developed in England in an imperfect and one- 
sided way by John Locke. It was inevitable that the principles 
of this philosophy should be applied to the explanation and vindi- 
cation of great truths of Christianity by a progressive development. 
For as we have already asserted, all theology is but the product of 
some accepted system of philosophy as applied to the explanation 
and defence of. Christian truth. All scientific theology from 
Justin to the present time has been such. The earlier theologians 
made use both of the truths and the fancies of Aristotle and Plato 
to explain and justify the doctrines of Christianity. Augustine 
could not avoid using the science and the nescience of Plato in con- 
structing his system. The schoolmen avowedly recognize Aris- 
totle "the philosopher" as the master of their schools, in which the 
teachings of the church were defended by means of his substantial 
forms and the doctrine of properties and accidents. When Luther 
broke with the church he broke also with Aristotle, and renounced 
him with his teachings with the same heartiness with which he re- 



95 

nounced the devil and liis works. But as the Reformation went on, 
and the necessity became pressing to defend by arguments the new 
evangelic truth, and to train preachers to orderly and systematic 
thinking, Melanchthon was directed to prepare the required elemen- 
tary treatises in logic and psychology, and so Aristotle came back 
into the Protestant schools. Melancthon's logic and de anima are 
but new statements of the old Aristotelian doctrine. The fact 
is not so often adverted to as it should be that the theologians of 
the Synod of Dort and of the Westminister Assembly were trained 
by the manuals of thinking which were prepared after Aristotle and 
Plato, as these writers were better understood and more rationally 
interpreted by the disciples of the restored classical learning. But 
the creeds of all branches of the Reformed Church were formed by 
men who could have known nothing of the new philosophy, inas- 
much as Descartes and Locke both followed them in time. 

It was reserved for Jonathan Edwards boldly to apply the 
new philosophy of Locke to the exposition and defence of the Cal- 
vinist theology in which he had been trained. Locke's Essay on 
the Human Understanding had furnished the intellectual nutriment 
of his boyhood. At the age of thirteen he had mastered its contents. 
From that time till he was seventeen he had freely followed out the 
course of speculation to which these readings prompted him. The 
miscellaneous notes on metaphysical topics appended to Dwight's 
Life of Edwards are more wonderful as indications of philosophical 
reach and power than any of Edwards' formal treatises. The bold- 
ness, the subtlety and the variety of these speculations are alike 
wonderful. It was given to this man, who united in himself the 
subtlety of Aquinas with the seraphic ardor of St. Francis, in a 
frontier settlement of the then isolated New England, to make the 
bold attempt which is so well characterized by the title of his 
Treatise on the Will as "a careful and strict enquiry into the mod- 
ern prevailing notions of that freedom of the will which is supposed 
to be essential to moral agency, virtue and vice, reward and punish- 
ment, praise and blame." This means no less than an attempt phi- 
losophically to defend and justify those conceptions so far as they 
are implied and taught in the Christian system. What Edwards 
attempted with the doctrine of the will, he also essayed with the 
nature of virtue and the Christian affections (involving the con- 
sideration of selfishness and self-love), with the doctrines of original 
sin, of justification by faith, and of original sin. In discussing all 
these topics Edwards pursues substantially the same method of 
harmonizing the received interpretations of biblical truth with 



the principles of sound psychology and metaphysics. In doing 
this he both established for his successors a method of inquiry 
and left them a legacy of positive principles. 

Both have remained till the present time as characteristic 
of the so-called New England theology. It has been from the 
first severely metaphysical, and yet it has been conspicuously 
practical. It has not been more ready to carry out its principles 
to their logical inferences than it has been earnest to apply them 
to their practical uses. It has accepted the logical consequences 
of its reasonings wherever these reasonings w^ould lead, and it has 
been ready to die for them as well. It has valued its theology for 
its truth, but preeminently for its power over the hearts and lives 
of men. It has believed in truth as self-consistent, as capable of 
being explained and enforced and applied, and it has contended 
for freedom in searching for and developing the truth as the 
necessary condition of giving to the truth its appropriate influ- 
ence. It has also assumed that there could be no possible conflict or 
contradiction between Reason and Faith. Believing in freedom of 
investigation, it has also believed in progress. It has actually made 
progress, changing the subjects of its research and discussion in 
every generation. After the elder Edwards came Hopkins, the 
younger Edwards, Smalley, Burton, and Emmons, each with his 
special contribution of new principles, or more sharply drawn 
inferences. These speculative and practical directions and ten- 
dencies were to some extent opposed to one other, and involved 
important practical results which from time to time have divided 
the ministry and excited the churches. 

These different theologians and schools had, as is well known, 
come into active tension before the time of Dr. D wight. This dis- 
tinguished theologian was able to mediate between these extremes 
by reason of his liberal spirit, his wide reading, and his catholic 
spirit. But though his influence arrested the adjustment of these 
extremes, it c%ild not prevent the controversy which followed. 
Dr. Taylor, with his sharper and more rigorous logic and his 
bolder and severer intellect, had been trained at the feet of Dr. 
D wight, and was honest in believing that he only more exactly 
stated and more rigorously applied the principles which he had 
learned from the lips of his revered teacher. It is also worthy of 
notice that Dr. D wight, by his large literary sympathies and his 
generous nature, introduced into theological discussions those 
ethical considerations which had been forced into modern thought 
on occasion of the controversies with the English Deists, by many 



97 

of the defenders of natural and revealed religion, among whom But- 
ler Avas conspicuous. Such elements as these could not but take 
a strong hold on the mind and conscience of Dr. Taylor, and receiv- 
ing them, he could not but give them constantly free room and a 
wide application in his theological thinking. But whatever modi- 
fications Dr. Taylor introduced into the New England theology, 
lie believed to be authorized by its method and spirit, and to be 
the legitimate application of both. He regarded himself as 
true to the inheritance bequeathed by Edwards and Dwight. 

The training of Dr. Taylor for the sphere which he was called to 
fill, deserves a brief notice. To his personal religious experiences I 
have already alluded. His active and exciting ministry of some 
twelve years in New Haven contributed in every way to qualify 
him for the career of an efficient and stimulating theological teacher. 
The town was divided into three or four Protestant religious bodies, 
by each of which its own peculiar theological tenets were regarded 
as of supreme concern, and theological truth was esteemed as 
chiefest of all truth. Every sermon was a discourse to be listened 
to, and talked of during the week. The prejudices and preposses- 
sions of old traditions and old beliefs were formidable antagonists 
to contend with. Powerful religious movements were to be looked 
and labored for, and formidable oppositions to be overcome. A 
paradoxical or negligent statement was certain to be criticised. 
Both Arminian and Calvinistic laymen were sorely puzzled and 
agitated by hearing that Dr. Taylor had asserted that it was as 
easy for man to break the decrees of God as to burn a tow string. 
Into this field Dr. Taylor brought all his zeal and energy, living 
a studious and laborious life. His sermons contained the elements 
of elaborate theological essays, and they were fired by an ardor of 
faith, and delivered with an energy of manner which could neither 
be resisted nor set aside. His ministry was most successful. His 
power and eloquence as a preacher contributed largely to his 
training and Ms eminence as a theological teacher. To the end of 
his life he never ceased to declare that the most exalted of all 
human vocations was the ministry of the gospeh 

His growth as a teacher merits attention. He was a student to 
the last. As we follow the brief outlines from which he gave his 
first courses of lectures, to the carefully written and perfectly 
finished disquisitions which engrossed his attention and consumed 
his energies for years ; as we recall the eagerness and enterprise 
with which he read new authors and accepted new trains of 
7 



98 

thought ; as we remember the iron industry with which he taxed 
his brain and employed his pen, we honor him as most conspicu- 
ous for that excited interest and sustained energy in a pursuit, 
which men call genius. 

His influence upon his pupils was a testimony to his fidelity 
and to his power. To some extent it may be ascribed to the 
novelty of some of the truths which he taught and to the bold- 
ness and energy with which he set them forth. The relief which 
they brought to many doubting and perplexed souls, and the 
brightness and beauty with which they invested the character 
and ways of God, were to a large extent the occasions of the 
interest with which he was heard. The interest with which he 
regarded his pupils, the patience and skill with which he listened 
to their objections, the entire unreserve with which he challenged 
them to familiar discussions, greatly heightened his popularity 
and enhanced his power. The community who admired him as a 
preacher and as a man, who were awakened by his earnestness, 
and relieved of their difficulties by his clear expositions of practi- 
cal truth, and moved to tears by his tender entreaties, were also 
interested in the progress of the controversy in which he was 
charged with much evil and assailed by many hard names. 

The controversy had died away long before Dr. Taylor ceased 
to live. New topics forced themselves upon the attention of 
students and the public. Even before he had ceased to teach, 
his students could, with difficulty, believe that what was ac- 
cepted by them as an obvious truism, had a few years before been 
assailed as a dangerous heresy, and that principles which to them 
seemed fundamental to all faith, had been seriously called in ques- 
tion by orthodox divines. Towards the end of his life many in- 
fluences, which in the early part of his career were hostile to his 
opinions and his good name, conspired to help the progress of his 
views. 

For these reasons and others it is not easy to estimate the value 
of the legacy which he has left to mankind. His own writings 
will not be read so generally as they would have been, had they 
not been written for the ear rather than for the eye. It cannot, we 
think, be doubted that he has enforced certain convictions and 
confirmed important principles, which it is of the greatest service 
to mankind that they should believe and firmly hold, and which 
many of the present generation seem likely to call in question. 
These concern the reality of sin, its deadly evil, its hopeless cor- 
ruption and the helpless condition of those who are subject to its 



99 

power, without the efficient influences of supernatural grace. The 
personality of God and the importance of the diviiie authority 
and sympathy are intimately connected with the theory of God's 
moral government which Dr. Taylor made so much of. The 
ethical spirit in which he taught theological truth and the grand 
ethical motives which he emphasized have left their impress upon 
not a few living thinkers. His views of theology as a science 
involving thought and method and study, and requiiing for these 
freedom and progress, were not announced a single day too soon 
for the exigencies of the times in which we live. His views of the 
duty of toleration and of union on the basis of substantial Christ- 
ianity were most decided and outspoken. Xo man would have 
rejoiced more heartily then he at the re-union in the Presbyterian 
church. His contempt and indignation for the folly and wicked- 
ness and the belittling sectarianism and hollow proselytism of 
our divided Protestantism, excited a generous response in the 
souls of many who were stimulated and ennobled by their utter- 
ance. His conception of the strength of the possible defences 
of Christianity and the weakness of many of its actual defenders 
conld not fail to bring forth fruit. His estimate of the dignity of 
the ministry has drawn and held many to this highest of human 
callings. 

Of his personal character I need not speak. Tou know how 
strong and stem he was, and yet how tender and loving ; how 
philosophical in his abstractions, and how human in his love; 
how self-relying in his resources, and yet how dependent on others 
for sympathy ; how honorable and upright before man, and how 
broken-hearted before God. It is often said that our Christianity 
at once needs manliness and simplicity ; that it should cast off its 
conventionalism and cant if it would command the respect and 
love of the men of these times. Dr. Taylor was every inch a man ; 
preeminently such in his religious faith and feelings, and he taught 
and impressed manliness upon all with whom he had to do. 

Much is said of the new aspects which theology is now assuming. 
Christianity we are told, must now be defended on the field of 
history and criticism, and on these alone. It should not be for- 
gotten, however, that the mythical theory of Strauss and the his- 
torical compromises of Baur, both rest upon a philosophical 
theory of God and man, of the universe, and its ends, which had 
been enforced in the schools of philosophy, and that, with another 
theory of these fundamental truths, these historical and critical 
theories would lose all their plausibility. It can never happen, it 



100 

would seem, that Christianity can be attacked or defended with 
success without a sound philosophy of God's government and of 
man's responsibilities. 



ADDRESS OF REY. DR. ATWATER. 



Rev. Lyman H. Atwater, D.D. (Class of 1835), Professor of 
Moral and Political Science in Princeton College, then spoke as 
follows : 

Brethre7i of the Alumni : — As one of the older of your number, 
it has given me great pleasure to be able, not without considerable 
effort and inconvenience, to respond to the invitation kindly ex- 
tended to me to be with you on this auspicious occasion. I tender 
my cordial greetings to you on this completion of a half century 
of the life of this Theological Seminary. It may surprise those of 
you who know something of my later but not of my earlier history, 
when I tell you that if any one has whereof to boast of close and 
tender relations with Dr. Taylor, I more. One of the very 
first baptized by him, I continued among the children of his 
church during his whole pastorate. When old enough to attend 
church, I became a constant member of his Sabbath assemblies. 
Although too young to enter into the profounder reasonings of his 
discourses, which even then often foreshadowed his future theo- 
logical lectures in the professor's chair; yet they were seldom 
without a practical application to the conscience, heart, and life, 
which was sent home with an earnestness and eloquence that could 
hardly fail to stir the dullest and impress the youngest mind. 
And none of my earliest memories are more vivid and unfading 
than the mingled majesty and benignity apparent in his person, 
presence, and bearing, as he walked through the middle aisle, 
ascended the then high pulpit, and there officiated in all parts of 
the service. Here, too, his noble and massive forehead, so justly 
styled by his successor, in his funeral discourse, a very " dome of 
thought," his wondrous eye, lustroas with intelligence and benev- 
olent earnestness, his voice, so clear, sonorous, and grand — in 
short, his whole face, attitude, and expression, bespoke a great 
and extraordinary man. They were a power upon every man, 
woman, and child in his audience. For any congregation to 
have a worthy pastor, gifted with such a presence, is itself a 
benediction. 



101 

At a later period, I was naturally drawn to him as my theo- 
logical teacher — the capacity in which most of you have chiefly or 
only known him. Here I came to understand the meaning of 
such phrases as " moral agency," " natural evil," and " moral evil," 
a "true moral government," &c., which still rung in my ears as I 
had before heard them in sermons, freighted with reasonings too 
deep for my young intelligence. In the providence of God, too, I 
was often brought to this city, after leaving the Seminary, up to 
the end of Dr. Taylor's life. During these visits here I seldom 
failed to call on him, and to enjoy that frank and friendly inter- 
course, which our earnest theological differences, mutually trying 
as they were, were never suffered to quench. 

Under all the circumstances of this occasion, you will pardon 
any seeming egotism, when I say that it has been my lot, in the 
divine goodness, not only to have had intimate and thorough know- 
ledge of Dr. Taylor's character and views, as already set forth, 
but also to have had the privilege of the most unreserved and con- 
fidential intercourse, for near twenty years, with two other divines 
no less eminent in the American church, and especially among 
those who felt it their duty to combat the peculiarities of Dr. 
Taylor's system. I mean Nathaniel Hewit and Charles 
Hodge. I refer to this, because I suppose no other living man 
has had just such means of knowing what I am now about to 
state. Herein I know beyond a peradventure whereof I affirm. 
And I am most happy, here and now, to bear testimony that these 
three great representative men, alike in the great fundamental 
Christian articles which they agreed in upholding, and in those 
subordinate points upon which they were in earnest conflict, were 
actuated by a common aim — the glory of God in the salvation of 
lost souls. Dr. Taylor was earnest in all his peculiarities, because 
he believed them true — necessary to the most effective preaching, 
and the most abundant conversions and revivals. Drs. Hewit 
and Hodge were alike earnest for contrary views in the premises, 
because in their inmost souls they believed them true, and that 
such truth is in order to godliness. Many, under God, including 
even those who could not accept all their respective speculative 
views, have received from each of these men most precious im- 
pulse and guidance in the way of life. To the many who have 
heard of Dr. Hewit chiefly in other aspects, I take the opportunity 
to state, that I have never known the man who so often was lifted, 
or lifted others, to the third heavens, in prayer, or who was so 
largely resorted to, far and wide, by people in spiritual darkness. 



102 

Multitudes thus cast down, through his wise and tender counsels, 
received that " comfort wherewith he himself was comforted of 
God." 

It is no less a pleasure to me to he able to state, not only in 
proof of his charity and catholicity, but also of his concurrence 
with my own view of the true ideal and ends of Christian preach- 
ing, that Dr. Taylor once said to me, that the best sermons were 
not those elaborate, ornate, and splendid productions, popularly 
styled " great sermons," but those simple and vivid presentations 
of saving truth, that go straightest and deepest into the hearts 
and consciences of men, — and that Asahel Nettleton (one of 
his most staunch adversaries in theological controversy) and 
Moses Stuart were the most powerful preachers, according to 
this standard, whom he had known. He then proceeded to illus- 
trate his meaning by a graphic description of one of the character- 
istic sermons of each, which there is no time to repeat. In this 
connection, it is only proper to add that, in view of their known 
theological relations and antecedents, his great and avowed love 
in his later years for the preaching and Sabbath services of the 
late Dr. Cleaveland, of this city, furnishes a striking illustration 
of the same trait. 

It would be a pleasure to add some reminiscences of Drs. Good- 
rich, Fitch, and Gibbs, with whom I came variously in contact, as 
student and tutor in the College, as well as in the Seminary. 
But there is less occasion here, because all that I know is so well 
known by others, and has already been amply presented. Each 
was an able, faithful, and holy man, and did great and good ser- 
vice to his generation. 

Constrained as I have been, in the conflicts of the past genera- 
tion, to take a different view from these distinguished men of 
some great issues in metaphysics and divinity, 1 rejoice, my breth- 
ren, that, however in these things we may think we differ, or dif- 
fer in our thinking, we can look over these barriers, and find a 
higher, indissoluble " unity of faith " in the one body of which we 
are members ; one Spirit by which we are sealed ; one hope by 
which we live; one Lord, our Prophet, Priest, and King; one 
faith by which we live in, and through, and unto Him ; one bap- 
tism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the Trinity 
in Unity, to w^hom be glory forever. 

I have no right to another moment of your time. I give you 
my warm congratulations. May your next half century be 
crowned with the honor of services to the cause of Christ and 
salvation beyond all the past. 



103 

The reference of Dr. Atwater to the dist in squished Princeton 
Professor, Dr. Charles Hodge, led Dr. Bacon to advert to the cele- 
bration at Princeton, a few days before, in honor of his fifty years 
service in the Theological Seminary there. Dr. Bacon said he 
would take the liberty of reading a passage from Dr. Hodge's 
answer to his letter of congratulation and of apology for absence 
on that occasion : 

" Few days of my life are more vividly impressed on my mem- 
ory than the three days in the spring of 1820, which I passed in 
New Haven under the hospitable roof of Dr. Taylor. I was fasci- 
nated by him ; and learned in those few days the magic power 
which made him so attractive to all who came under his influence. 
His name is never mentioned without awakening in me a glow of 
grateful and affectionate remembrance. 

" The presence of your revered ex-president, Dr. Woolsey (at 
the celebration) was an ornament and a real blessing. The few 
words which he uttered, I shall treasure in my heart as long as I 
live." 



ADDRESS OF HON. PETER PARKER. 

The Hon. and Rev. Peter Parker (Class of 1834), of Washing- 
ton, D. C, late U. S. Commisioner to China, being called, ex- 
pressed his regret that the state of his health would not allow him 
to do justice to his feelings or to the occasion; but said he 
could not forbear saying a few words, which were substantially 
as follows : 

We take to day, my friends, a retrospect of fifty years. What 
changes in both hemispheres, the Eastern as well as Western, 
have signalized the half century ! How many of the distinguished 
actors upon life's stage, on this and the other side of the world, have 
passed away. 

A prominent object of this semi-centennial celebration is to 
review the influence which, under God, this Seminary has put 
forth upon the world at home and abroad, and to forecast its 
mission in the future. Carefully prepared papers have been read 
showing its connections with Domestic and Foreign Missions. It 
is in respect to the latter I am more particularly to speak, and 
from personal experience in the foreign field. It is forty-one years 
since I became connected with this Seminary, and eight and thirty 
since my embarkation for China, in the service of the A. B. C. F. M. 



104 

It was in the twofold capacity of ordained and medical mis- 
sionary I went to that country, and I have never had occasion 
to question the wisdom of that course. In no other capacity could 
I have rendered the cause of missions so much service, or have 
exerted the same influence in favor of the good of both countries. 

It is relevant to the occasion, as illustrating the foreign mis- 
sionary influence of this Seminary, to allude to some facts now 
history. 

On the occurrence of hostilities between England and China in 
1840, my labors being suspended in the Ophthalmic Hospital of 
the Medical Missionary Society of China, I returned to America 
with a view to improve my health, which had been impaired by 
excessive labors. After arriving in New Haven, I expressed to 
President Day, Prof. Silliman, Prof. Kingsley and the Faculty of 
Yale generally, and to other friends in 'New Haven, my views of 
the peculiar state of afiairs in China, and of the favorable oppor- 
tunity for the American Government to proffer friendly offices to 
the contending powers, and to establish treaty relations with 
China. With one voice these gentlemen said, emphatically, *' You 
must go to Washington, and there express the sentiments and 
views you state to us." In company with Rev. Dr. Bacon, early in 
January, 1841, I proceeded to Washington. The administra- 
tion of President Yan Buren was near its close. On calling on 
the President and the Hon. Mr. Forsyth, Secretary of State, I was 
referred to the cabinet officers of the incoming administration. As 
Dr. Bacon will remember, we called on Mr. Webster, Secretary of 
State elect. He listened attentively to the information respecting 
China, and the suggestions submitted in relation to our own govern- 
ment. On taking leave, Mr. Webster rose up and with a grave voice 
said, " What you have now stated to me orally^ will you be so good. 
Sir, as to give me in writing^ for the benefit of whom it may con- 
cern ?" " With great pleasure," was the response, and proceeding 
immediately to my lodgings, the oral statements were put in 
writing. When the Hon. Caleb Cushing came out as U. S. Envoy 
to China, in 1844, and Com. James Biddle, with ratified treaty for 
exchange, in 1 846, each had a copy of that paper, and essentially 
the programme therein initiated has since been carried out by our 
government. 

With the approval of the Prudential Committee of the A. B. C. 
F. M., Rev. Dr. Bridgman and myself were selected by Mr. 
Cushing as joint Chinese Secretaries and Interpreters to the Lega- 
tion. At my first interview with Mr. Cushing on his arrival in 



105 

China, he remarked " It is not merely as Chinese interpreter I 
desire your services. I wish to avail myself of your long resi- 
dence in China, your knowledge of the people and government, 
their laws and customs," and added, " there will be no secrets be- 
tween you and me." It was even so (and when just six months 
from the day of his landing at Macao, he embarked for the United 
States via Mexico, at parting he remarked with a smile, " I think 
we may look back upon the past six months with the reflection 
that we have done some good in the world "). And there was no 
suggestion I had to offer upon any subject on which my mind 
was clear and decided that he did not adopt in relation to the 
treaty. It was in this capacity, in the providence of God, I was 
enabled to render important service to the cause of missions and 
to both countries. 

I bless God, and trust I shall through eternity, for the instru- 
mentality his all-wise providence has permitted me to exercise in the 
extra offices I have been called to hold. In a few years I shall 
cease entirely, as already partially, to have a part in the work of 
evangelizing China, but the privileges my subordinate instru- 
mentality has gained, my brethren and successors are now enjoy- 
ing, and these facilities for extending the gospel in China will 
remain when I am dead. 

Previous to the arrival from Peking of the Imperial Commis- 
sioner Ke-ying, and while waiting his coming, Mr. Gushing prepared 
a projet of a treaty and had it translated into Chinese, and at 
the first interview of the two Ministers it was arranged that 
deputies, Hwang-Gan Tung, Chaou Chang Ling, and Pwan-Sze 
Shing, on the part of Ke-ying; Fletcher Webster, Esq., Rev. Dr. 
E. C. Bridgman, and myself, in behalf of Mr. Gushing, should meet 
daily in consultation till the projet of treaty should assume a 
form acceptable to both parties. At one of these sessions 
on coming to the iVth Art. of the treaty, which provided for 
leasing of ground, building places of business and residences^ 
cemeteries, and hospitals, at the treaty ports, Pwan-Sze Shing, 
whose father and mother had been my patients (for his father, an 
old Hong merchant, I had successfully removed a large nasal 
polypus from each nostril), knowing the gratification it would 
afford me, suggested the additional, and most important provision, 
" Urh Lepae Thing ''^ {and Temples of Worship!) 

When the treaty of Wang-Hia was signed in quadruplicate 
copies, two for Washington and two for Peking, and Mr. Gushing 
was soon to return to the United States, he called on me and pro- 



106 

posed we should visit His Excellency M. Lagrane, the French 
Envoy, who had just arrived in China. He received us most cor- 
dially, and remarked that " he came last of the Foreign Ambassa- 
dors, and it only remained for him to bring out a third edition of 
one dictionari^ (referring to the English and American treaties as 
first and second), and my object will be to supply any omissions 
I may discover in the previous ones," and added " If there remains 
anything for me to do, it will be in the direction of the l7th arti- 
cle of your (Mr. C's.) treaty." 

True to this purpose, he proposed at the opening of his negotia- 
tions to have an article in the treaty specifically providing for the 
free toleration of Christianity throughout the empire. To this 
the Imperial Commissioner Ke-ying replied, " I have not the power. 
H. M. the Emperor alone can grant it," but, said he, " I will memo- 
rialize the throne upon the subject, and I apprise you in advance 
I may not succeed, but to evince that I am sincere and in earnest, 
if rebuffed in the first instance, I will memorialize the second 
time." 
^ His first memorial was acceded to, and under date of 28th 
Dec, 1844, the imperial rescript was published granting full tole- 
ration of Christianity throughout China ! and what was thus 
-/- -first granted, by imperial rescript, was several years later em- 

bodied in the treaties of the Western powers, England, France, 
Russia and the United States. This in brief, is the true history 
^ of Christian toleration hi China. 

When the entering wedge, " Jlrh Le pae Tang^'' " and Temples 
of Worship " was introduced in the 1 7th article of the American 
treaty, I felt that to be instrumental! y subservient to its accom- 
plishment was of itself worth the life-labors of any one man. 

Rev. Dr. Bush, in the paper just read, has introduced illustrations 
of the grateful sentiments of my Chinese patients. I may refe 
to one more among many — the case of the Tartar general afflicted 
with cataracts. After the operations upon both eyes and when 
about to return home, my patient early one morning sent for me 
and on repairing to the hospital, I found the corpulent old gene- 
ral in full official dress, satins, red buttons and peacock's feather, 
complete, ready to depart. He requested me to be seated in front 
of him, when he thus expressed himself : 

"I have lived till my beard has grown so long" (stroking down 
his white flowing beard, which extended to his waist) ; I have held 
office in all the eighteen provinces of the empire ; but never 
before have I seen or heard such things as I have witnessed in this 



107 

hospital," and concluded with the exclamation, " Tae-Uh, tae tih, 
Teen-shed te-e-ko jiny ("Superlative virtue ! Superlative virtue ! 
below the sky number one man.") 

In the treatment of 53,000 patients, embracing every class and 
condition, from the beggar to members of the Imperial household, 
and including diseases of every variety that flesh is heir to, 
many being of the gravest character that falls to the care of 
physician or surgeon, a great amount of physical suffering has 
been alleviated, a joo5^Y^ve good has been accomplished a7id cannot 
he undone ; but all this has been subsidiary, and auxiliary, to the 
higher aim of my mission. It has been a greater privilege with 
these hands to distribute many volumes of the Bible and Christian 
books to confiding and grateful Chinese, and to scores of thous- 
ands of benighted idolaters ; to have been permitted, in their own 
language^ to expound the great and fundamental truths of Reve- 
lation, especially the love of God in the redemption of the 
world through His Son, and I cherish tho hope of meeting here- 
after some of them around the throne of God. 



Interesting addresses were also made by Rev. E. Goodrich 
Smith (Class of 1827) of Washington, D.C., Rev. Mason Grosvenor 
(Class of 1831) of Cincinnati, O., and others, who gave their 
reminiscences and expressed their warm interest in the plans and 
prospects of the Seminary. It was only to be regretted that the 
time did not allow the Alumni to hear from a still larger number 
who would gladly have embraced the opportunity to speak, and 
some of whom had come from a considerable distance ; but all that 
was possible in the short space that remained was to listen to a 
brief statement, which was made by Professor Day, in regard to 
the endowments and wants of the Institution, to which is here 
prefixed a sketch of the 

FixANCiAL History awd Condition of the Seminary. 

The funds of the Theological Department are entirely distinct 
from those of the other Departments of Yale College. The Semi- 
nary has therefore a financial history of its own. It is a lecord of 
the benefactions, for the last fifty years, of those who have felt a 
special interest in the training of young men for the Christian 
ministry, and have recognized the importance of giving constant 



108 

prominence to the central thought which led to the establish- 
ment of Yale College. Without mentioning the names of all, 
amounting to several hundreds, who have taken part in this work, 
a general account of the successive gifts and endowments by 
which the Seminary has been brought to its present pecuniary 
position is due to the memory of deceased benefactors, and is 
a deserved recognition of the service rendered by those who 
survive. 

I. On the records of the Corporation of Yale College, under date 
of Sept. 20, 1822, appears the following minute: "Whereas, one 
of the principal objects of the pious founders of this College was 
the education of pious young men for the work of the ministry, 
and whereas, to provide the requisite funds for establishing a 
Professorship of Didactic Theology in this College, sundry persons 
have subscribed an instrument in the follomng words, viz : ' The 
undersigned, feeling a deep interest in the prosperity of Yale 
College, do hereby severally agree to pay the sums annexed to 
our names respectively, for the establishment of a permanent fund 
to support an additional Professor or Professors in the Depart- 
ment of Theology in Yale College, June 20, 1822' [here follow 
the names of the donors and certain conditions], 

J^oted, That this Board doth accordingly found and establish 
in this College on said fund, a Professorship of Didactic Theology, 
on the terms, conditions and limitations expressed by said instru- 
ment, subscribed by said Timothy Dwight and others. 

Voted, That in commemoration of the high sense which this 
Board entertains of the distinguished merits of the Rev. Timothy 
Dwight, deceased, late President in this College and of his eminent 
services and usefulness in office, the professorship this day estab- 
lished, shall take his name and be styled the Dwight Profes- 
sorship OF Didactic Theology. 

Voted unanimously. That the Rev. Nathaniel W. Taylor, of 
Kew Haven, is elected Dwight Professor of Didactic Theology in 
this College, and that he have as a salary annually the income of 
the fund established for the support of the Professorship of Didac- 
tic Theology, to be paid one-third at the expiration of each term ; 
provided, however, that no greater yearly salary shall be allowed 
than twelve hundred dollars until further ordered by this Board." 

The names of many of the subscribers to this endowment have 
now passed into history. First on the list stands the name of the 
President of the College, then, the names of the principal mem- 
bers of the Faculty, next, of the largest donor, the eldest son of 



109 

President Dwight, and then of prominent persons, all, with one 
exception, citizens or residents of New Haven. The several sums 
subscribed, some of them from very limited salaries, show how 
important the object was felt to be. 

The subscribers were : Jeremiah Day, S700 ; B. Silliman, the 
interest of $500 for five years ; Jas. L. Kingsley, 850 a year for 
ten years;* Eleazar T. Fitch, 81,666.66 ; Chauncey A. Goodrich, 
$500 ; Timothy Dwight, 85,000 ; William Lefiingwell, $2,000 in 
real estate ; Anna Townsend, $500 ; Abraham Bradley, jun., and 
Jared Bradley, real estate ; Stephen Twining, §250 ; Hull and 
Townsend, $500 ; Dyer White, $300 ; S. Converse, $500 ; William 
H. Elliot, $300 ; John H. Coley, 8100 ; Jehiel Forbes, $50 ; Elihu 
Sanford, $50 ; a lady, $30 for three years ; Titus Street, $1,000 ; 
Stephen Yan Rensselaer, $500. 

For the remaining sum of $5,000 necessary to complete the pro- 
posed endowment of $20,000, Professors Goodrich and Fitch 
bound themselves, by a formal contract >vith the Corporation, to 
be responsible, and were finally able to report that the deficiency 
was made up by Nehemiah Hubbard, who gave S 1,000 ; Henry L. 
Ellsworth, $1,000 ; Wm. W. Ellsworth, $800 ; Thomas S. Williams, 
$500 ; David Daggett, $600, and other donors of smaller sums. 

The other expenses of the Seminary for several years were met 
chiefly by annual subscriptions. Two bequests in this period were 
made to the School, one by Rev. John Elliott, of Guilford, Conn., 
now amounting to $1,334, for the Library, the other of $949 by 
Mrs. Martha Denison, of ^ew Haven ; also a gift of $500 in 1827 
from Ebenezer Parker, of Boston, Mass. In the year 1836, the 
building formerly known as DiAdnity College was erected on a line 
with the other College buildings, for the purpose of providing rooms 
for the students in theology, who had previously occupied apart- 
ments above the Chapel and in private dwellings. The cost of 
this building was $14,550, to which the principal contributors were 
A. M. Collins, of Hartford, $500 ; Richard Hubbard, of Middle- 
town, 81 ,500 ; Isaac Plummer, of Glastonbury, $500 ; Prof. Chauncey 
A. Goodrich, $1,500 ; Edward E. Salisbury, $500 ; Rev. Walter H. 
Bid well, $500, and Aaron Hardy, $425. But the General Fund of 
the Seminary, including the endowment of the Dwight Professor- 
ship, was still very small, amounting in 1838 to only $34,067. 
n. On the accession of Professor Goodrich to the Theological 
Faculty, in the year 1839, the Professorship of the Pastoral Charge 

* Special provisions connected with several of these subscriptions are omitted. 



liO 

was partially endowed by a donation of $5,000 from him, to which 
were added S500 annually for ten years from Aristarchus Champion, 
of Rochester, N.Y., $300 annually for five years from Rev. Walter 
H. Bidwell, of New York, and S2,000 from an anonymous donor 
through President Woolsey. 

Other donations in this period were also made to the Seminary, 
among which may be mentioned one of $700 from Professor J. 
W. Gibbs, and of $1,200 from Hon. Wm. A. Buckingham, of 
Norwich, Conn., and also legacies of $3,801 from Mrs. Martha 
Kimberly, of New Haven, $500 from Solomon Langdon, of Farm- 
ington. Conn., $4,500 from Elisha Minor, of Woodbury, Conn., 
$2,168 from Wm. Leffingwell, of New Haven, and $1,853 from 
Hiram Holcomb, of South wick, Mass., a graduate of the Seminary, 
who died in 1840, together with smaller sums. Yet, exclusive of 
the cost of the Divinity College, the entire endowment of the 
Seminary at the death of Dr. Taylor in 1858, thirty-six years after 
its establishment, was still but $57,565. 

HI. In that year it was felt by all that a crisis had arrived, and 
at a meeting of the Alumni and friends of the Theological Depart- 
ment, in the week of the annual Commencement, a subscription 
was opened for the endowment of the various professorships. 
With a liberality which will always be remembered with gratitude, 
the Hon. Wm. A. Buckingham, then Governor of the State of 
Connecticut, came forward in 1864, with a gift of twenty-five 
thousand dollars ($25,000),* which by subsequent donations he has 
raised to $33,000 in addition to his first donation of $1 ,200. Large 

* The views whicli led G-overnor Buckingham to make this large and timely 
donation are so clearly expressed in the following letter, a copy of which is pre- 
served in the records of the Corporation of the College, that it is here given. 

NoEWiCH, Conn., April 8th, 1864. 
Dear President, — 

I cannot express the value which I place upon the influence of 
Yale College as a power which has hitherto sustained our Government, moulded 
our institutions, and extended the interests of civilization and Christianity ; and 
for the purpose of increasing such influence and of giving strength and per- 
manency to an institution identified as the College is with the history of Connecti- 
cut, I enclose my draft at sight on Messrs. B. Whitehouse, Son, & Morrison, of 
New York, payable to the order of H. C. Kingsley, Treasurer, for the sum of 
twenty-five thousand ($25,000) dollars, to be used for the special benefit of the 
Theological Department, under the direction of the Corporation. 
I am, with great respect. 

Your friend and obedient servant, 

WM. A. BUCKINGHAM. 
Eev. Theodore D. Woolsey, D.D., 

President of Yale College, New Haven. 



Ill 

gifts and bequests were also made by others, of whom may be men- 
tioned Professor Chauncey A. Goodrich, $16,V47, Benjamin Hop- 
pin, of Providence, R. I., $15,000, Wm. Burroughs, a graduate of 
the Seminary, Avho died in the year 1861, $10,000, Miss Lucretia 
Deming and Wm. W. DeForest of New York, and David Smith of 
Norwich, Conn., $5,000 each, Simeon B. Chittenden, of Brooklyn, 
N. Y., 82,500, Miss Ann S. Mumford, of New London, Conn., 
$2,300, F. H. North, of New Britain, Conn., $2,000, Wm. Allen, 
New York, Dr. John DeForest, Watertown, Conn., Mrs. Robert 
McEwen, New London, Conn., Pelatiah Perit, New Haven, T. W. 
Stanley, New Britain, Mrs. Young, and Dr. Nathan Durfee, of Fall 
River, Mass., $1,000 each, and others who gave smaller sums, by 
which " the Professorship and General Fund " was increased till 
it amounted in 1865 to $107,476. 

Meanwhile a number of scholaeships of one thousand dollars 
each, the interest of which is exclusively appropriated to approved 
and promising candidates for the ministry, were given by Mrs. 
Caroline A. Street, Charles Atwater, Miss Mary L. Hillhouse and 
Thomas R. Trowbridge of New Haven, Austin and A. C. Dun- 
ham, and Roland Mather of Hartford, Richard Borden of Fall 
River, R. L, a scholarship of $2,000 by Dr. John De Forest of 
Watertown, and a gift in real estate, subject to the payment of 
a certain annuity, by Rev. David Root, now of Philadelphia, 
which by sale has brought the sum of $14,500. The whole amount 
of this fund, on the first of June, 1866, including a few partially 
endowed scholarships, was $24,650. 

IV. The endowment of the Institution, however, was still very in- 
adequate, and it became evident, that if this Department of the Col- 
lege was to flourish, it must be placed upon a broader foundation, 
not only by enlarging the number of instructors and the means of 
furnishing pecuniary aid to students whose circumstances require 
it, but also by providing suitable buildings, near the Academical 
Department and yet separate from it, for the work of the Seminary. 
The buildings embraced in the comprehensive plan which, after 
consultation with the eminent architect, Richard M. Hunt of New 
York, was adopted, were a Hall for lecture rooms and apart- 
ments for the students, a Chapel for religious and other 

It is an interesting fact that Senator Buckingham is a descendant of Eev. 
Thomas Buckingham of Saybrook, Conn., one of the founders of Yale College. 
In memory of his liberality, one of the professorships has been named by the 
Corporation, " the Buckingham Professorship of Sacred Literature." 



112 



general' exercises, a Refectory, and, whenever it should be re- 
quired, a SECOND Hall parallel to the first, the whole pile of build- 
ings forming a quadrangle, of which the following sketch may- 
give a general idea. 




Elm Street. 
[The parts of the structure indicated by the dark ground remain yet to be erected.] 

After some important preliminary work by Rev. S. W. Magill 
(Class of 1834), the members of the Theological Faculty, as their 
time and other engagements would allow, laid their plans and 
wishes, in person or by letter, biefore gentlemen of known benevo- 
lence in the prominent Congregational churches in New Haven, 
New York, Brooklyn and other places. They were much aided 
from the first by the cooperation and counsel of Mr. Samuel Holmes 
of Mont Clair, N. J., for some years a deacon in the Broadway 
Tabernacle Church, N. Y., who generously ofiered to give the sum 
of $25,000 in annual instalments for the endowment of one of the 
Professorships, provided the other friends of the Seminary would 
furnish the means of erecting the Hall (A) immediately needed for 
lecture rooms and apartments for the students.* 

Four gentlemen, Hon. Wm. E. Dodge of New York, Prof. S. F. 
B. Morse of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., since deceased, Dea. Aaron 

* This Professorship, in memory of his hberality, has since been named by the 
Corporation the " Holmes Professorship of the Hebrew Language and Literature." 



113 

Benedict of Waterbiiry, an esteemed friend of Dr. Taylor, and 
Mr. Daniel Hand, now residing in New Haven, responded to the 
application made to them, by tlie gift of ten thousand dollars each. 
Five thousand dollars each were given by Joseph Battell, Brooklyn, 
N. Y., Cornelius S.Bushnell, Henry Farnam, Nathan B. Ives, M.D., 
Prof. E. E. Salisbury, New Haven, and A. S. Hatch and Joseph 
Sampson, New York ; two thousand dollars by Prof. James M. 
Hoppin ; one thousand dollars each by William Allen, George Bliss, 
Alfred B. Darling, Amos T. Dwight, James W. Elwell, Seth B. 
Hunt, Caleb B. Knevals, Joseph Ripley, Wm. H. Smith, James 
Talcott, Charles C. Waite, Whittemore Bros., Neio York ; A. S. 
Barnes, Simeon B. Chittenden, and Walter T. Hatch, Brooklyn; 
Timothy Bishop, Mrs. Julia A. Dickerman, Prof Timothy Dwight, 
Henry C. Kingsley, Atwater Treat, and President Theo, D. Wool- 
sey, JVeio Haven; Henry Bill, Norwich; Hon. Benjamin Douglas, 
MiddUtown ; Henry P. Haven, New London ; Kev. E. L. Heer- 
mance, Castleton^ N. Y. ; Rev. Charles Nichols, New Britain^ 
Conn. ; Hon. Peter Parker, Washi7igton^ 3. C. ; Dea. Thomas 
Smith, Hartford^ Conn. ; and five hundred dollars each by Mrs. 
Augusta A. Anketell, Amos F. Barnes, John A. Blake, Prof 
George P. Fisher, Hon. Wm. Fitch, William Johnson, Mrs. Mary 
L. Skinner, Hon. James M. Towsend, Eli Whitney, Nathan Peck, 
and a lady. New Haven ; Charles Abernethy, L. M. Bates, Charles 
Gould, Aurelius B. Hull, H. B. Washburn, New York ; J. G. 
Cooley, Courtland P. Dixon, Brooklyn^ NY.; Roland Mather, 
Hartford^ (7o?^?^. / Rev. Dr. Robert McEwen, New London., Conn.; 
Orson W. Stow, Plantsville, Conn. ; three hundred dollars each 
by Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, and Prof George E. Day, Nev^ Haven ; 
Rev. Dr. S. G. Buckingham, Springfield., Mass. ; Rev. Dr. Jonathan 
Brace, Hartford ; two hundred and fifty dollars each by Erastus 
Collins, Hartford ; J. A. Bishop, Isaac Anderson, New Haven; W. 
C. Dunton, H. D. Wade, Brooklyn^ NY; Marshall O. Roberts, 
Robert Bonner, Ne'M York ; two hundred dollars each by Na- 
thaniel Shipman, Hartford^ Leonard Winship, New Haven ; one 
hundred dollars each by Wm. C. Crump, Esq., and a lady. New 
London; George Bulkley, Soiithport; C. C. Lyman, Hartford ; 
Rev. T. K. Fessenden, Farmington ; George W. Shelton, Birm- 
ingham ; Edward Sweet, Mont Clair., N J. ; Rev. Edward 
E. Atwater, Eli W. Blake, Matthew G. Elliott, John G. North, 
Mrs. William Spencer, Dr. Charles B. Whittlesey, Chauncey A. 
Dickerman, Neiv Haven ; Rev. Dr. W. I. Budington, Granville 
Whittlesey, Brooklyn, N Y.; Joseph S. Case, W. H. Fessenden, 



114 

W. B. Hatch, Thomas Lane, Amos H. Trowbridge, Rev. Dr. J. 
P. Thompson, New York ; Rev. Dr. Simeon North, Clinton^ N. Y.; 
Mrs. William Blewett, Statea Island, N. Y., and several smaller 
sums by others. Of the whole amount there was given by citizens 
of New Haven, the sum of $27,400, not including officers of Yale 
College, whose donations amounted to $6,100 ; by the Broadway 
Tabernacle Church and Congregation, New York, |15,850 ; by 
members of the Clinton Avenue Church and Congregation, Brook- 
lyn, N, Y, $3,700. A large part of the expense of the beautiful 
tiling of the corridor was borne by the architect and builders of 
the Hall, Messrs. R. M. Hunt, Atwater Treat, and Perkins & 
Chatfield. 

The corner-stone of this edifice (A) was laid on the 22d of Sep- 
tember, 1869, in the presence of a large number of the Alumni and 
friends of the Seminary, on which occasion addresses were made 
by Hon. Wm. A. Buckingham, Hon. Wm. E. Dodge, Simeon B. 
Chittenden, Esq., and others. These addresses, with the pro- 
ceedings, were published in a pamphlet and somewhat widely 
distributed. 

The building, the architectural beauty and convenience of which 
reflect much credit upon the architect, was ready for occupancy 
in September, 1870. When completed, it was furnished throughout 
by the liberality of churches and individuals in Connecticut, and 
has contributed largely to the recent growth of the institution. 

One room in it deserves special mention. It contains a Refer- 
ence Library, consisting of the most important and most frequently 
consulted works in every branch of theology, carefully selected 
by the Theological Faculty, and presented to the Seminary by 
Mr. Henry Trowbridge, of New Haven, in memory of his son, 
Henry Stuart Trowbridge, who died in December, 1869, at the 
age of seven years. For the purchase of this Library Mr. Trow- 
bridge made a donation of $3,000, besides furnishing the room 
in a tasteful and attractive manner at a further expense of $1,100. 
A bequest of $500 for the increase of this collection has since 
been received from the estate of Mrs. Clarissa A. Butterfield, of 
New Haven, and valuable donations of books and money have 
been made by several others. It is open for consultation every 
day, and containing, as it does, the latest theological publications 
of importance in England and America, is of very great benefit to 
the Seminary. 

The erection, in 1871, of the second building proposed — a tasteful 
and convenient Chapel — at an expense of $27,234, by the munifi- 



115 

cence of Frederick Marquaiid, Esq., has been already mentioned, 
(p. 35), and also the endowment of $10,000 for the Lyman Beec^her 
Lectureship on Preaching, by Henry W. Sage, Esq., of Brooklyn, 
N. Y., and the increase of the Scholarship Fund by the bequest of 
Mrs. Mary Ann Goodman. 

Although for the last few years, the efforts of the friends of the 
Seminary have been chiefly directed to providing the new build- 
ings required, further additions have been ma^e to the Scholar- 
ship Fund, viz., $5,000 from J. B. Beadle, Esq., of Mont Clair, N. J., 
and $1,000 from Rev. Charles Nichols (Class of 1825), of New 
Britain, Ct, who has also given the sum of S3,000 to the Fund for 
Instruction and general purposes. A legacy was also received in 
1870 from the estate of Mrs. Jane Pease, of Enfield, Ct., which 
amounted to $4,200. To these gifts should be added a bequest, not 
yet available, of $47,865, for the endowment of a "Titus Street 
Professorship," by Mr. Augustus R. Street, the munificent donor 
to Yale College of the Street Art Building. Nor would it be 
right to conclude this record without making grateful mention of 
the important aid which many friends of the Seminary have ren- 
dered in assisting students, and liberally contributing to the cur- 
rent expenses of the Institution. 

The permanent funds and property of the Seminary from the 
sources enumerated above are now as follows : Buildings, includ- 
ing the chapel, library, lecture rooms, &c., $162,750 ; Professorship 
and General Fund, available, $200,352 ; do. not available, $52,865 ; 
Scholarship Funds, subject to an annuity of six hundred dollars, 
$35,650; Library and Library Funds, $5,934. 

With this record we reach the close of the first half century of 
this Theological School. It affords ground for devout thanksgiving 
to Him who has inclined the hearts of Christian men and women 
to care for its prosperity and progress and to make provision for 
its most pressing wants. Their cooperation and aid have not been 
in vain. Eight hundred and fifty candidates for the ministry have 
here received, either partially or fully, their theological education. 
The world is feeling and will always feel their influence for good. 
With the manifest blessing of Heaven upon the efforts of the 
friends of the Seminary, a steadily and largely increasing number 
of students, a thoroughly organized Faculty, and an ever widen- 
ing circle of benefactors and attached Alumni, it enters upon the 
second half century of its existence with brighter prospects of wide 
and beneficent influence for Christ and His Church, in training 
young men for the ministry of the Gospel, than ever before. 



116 

Yet, with all these encouraging experiences, we ought not to 
hide from ourselves, nay we ought, with the future before us, 
distinctly to remember, that only a part — though certainly a large 
part — of what is necessary to give to this Seminary its highest 
power has been accomplished. The work which has been trans- 
mitted to us from the former instructors and benefactors of the 
Seminary is nothing less than to place the Theological Department 
of Yale College in the commanding position which its past his. 
tory, its close connection with a great and growing University, 
and its special means and opportunities, in consequence of this, of 
rendering service to the Christian Church, both justify and 
demand. 

A. The first want to be met, and which presses upon us to-day 
with a kind of alarming urgency, is the immediate erection of a 
second Hall^ similar to the one already erected and jyarallel to it. 
The Seminary has already outgrown its accommodations. The 
Hall erected in 1870 is already insufficient to furnish rooms for the 
increased number of students. It became necessary for the Sem- 
inary, at the commencement of the present year, to rent rooms in the 
city, at considerable expense, for scA^eral who could not be accommo- 
dated in the building. With the further prospective increase next 
year and in the years to come, this must entail, unless a new building- 
is provided, a heavy annual expense on the Institution, and greatly 
embarrass its progress. Our friends came forward to meet this 
special outlay of expenses for the first year, as we trust they will 
the second, but how long can we call upon them ? Is it not better, 
from every point of view, promptly to meet the emergency, which 
has every appearance of being a providential invitation to go for- 
ward ? In all the theological schools of the country, so far as is 
known, room rent is aflibrded to the students, free of charge, and it 
is certain that, unless this Seminary can do the same, our growth 
must be restricted to the limited capacity of the present building. 
The expense of the new building and land (marked B in the plan) 
is estimated at $150,000, or, with the addition of the Refectory, 
which is exceedingly desirable to lessen the cost of board, llYS, 
000. May it not be asked of Christian men of wealth to consider, 
what invitation to them this opportunity may be, to associate 
themselves with the recent mimificent benefactors of Yale College, 
who, by erecting, each at his own expense, some one of the new 
buildings which at once betoken and provide for its growth, have 
permanently identified themselves with its history. 



117 

B. The next waut of the Seminary, almost, if not equally press- 
ing with that of a new building, is a large increase in the amount 
of the Scholarship Funds. These funds, which are divided into 
distinct scholarships, bearing the names given to them by their 
several donors, and of which the interest only is appropriated, 
year by year, to deserving students needing assistance, have been 
of the greatest service and have helped forward many into the 
ministry, but are quite insufficient in the present state of the Sem- 
inary. During the past year, the number of students needing aid, 
without which they could not have continued their preparation for 
the ministry, has been 47, with the certain prospect of a still 
larger number of this class in the year before us.* An addition 
of '$80,000— $100,000 to this fund, in Scholarships of $1,000 or 
S2,000 each, would furnish a constant source of assistance at a point 
where it is always needed and where the benefactions of the donors 
would be perpetuated to the latest generations. 

C. The remaining want to be supplied is the adequate endow- 
ment of the Prof essor ship and General Fund., o\\ which the whole 
working of the Seminary depends. An institution, to be per- 
manently strong, must be able to call into its service as instructors 
the men whom it needs, however much they may be sought for in 
other directions, and to aiFord them a reasonable support. Not- 
withstanding the liberal donations which have been made to this 
fund, it still yields to the several instructors an average income not 
exceeding $2,400. This is so far below the expenses of living in 
New Haven as to justify serious solicitude on the part of the 
friends of the Seminary. In order to raise the salaries of the Pro- 
fessors each to $4,000, which is less than that received by the pas- 
tors of several of the JN ew Haven churches, there is needed an 
addition to the Professorship and General Fund of $75,000. For 
Lectureships on topics of special importance, including a fund of 
$10,000 for instruction in Elocution, which is urgently required, a 
fund of $30,000 might be usefully employed, to which may be 
added a special fiind of $10,000 for current expenses, such as the 
repairs of buildings, printing, etc., for which no provision is yet 
made. 

To sum up the whole : the erection of the new Hall, which the 
increased attendance of students requires, with a Refectory 
adjoining, and an addition, in round numbers, of $200,000 to the 
present endowment, would give a solid foundation to the Theo- 

* At the opening of the session of 1872-73, it is found that, of the 96 students 
in the Seminary, there are 70 who need the aid furnished by Scholarship Funds. 



. ' 118 

logical Department on the broad basis proposed, and enable it to 
extend its great facilities for obtaining the highest preparation for 
the work of the ministry to the graduates of the various Colleges 
of onr rapidly growing country, who might wish to obtain their 
theological education at Yale College. 



In response to these statements in respect to the present 
condition and wants of the Seminary, brief remarks, heartily 
endorsing the proposal to take some immediate action for erecting 
the new Hall were made by several gentlemen present. President 
Porter said that if another Hall could be built, there was no doubt 
it would be iilled with students. Professor Thacher remarked that 
in a case like this, it was only necessary to folloAv the injunction to 
" ask," to make it sure that the Seminary would " receive." Dea. 
Samuel Holmes thought that this evident call for enlargement was 
to be accepted as the manifest fruit of past effort, which ought by 
all means to be gathered in. Rev. B. W. Dwight (Class of 1838) 
of Clinton, N. Y., now editor of the " Interior," at Chicago, 111., 
expressed the great gratification which he and many others felt, 
whose voices the time would not allow to be heard, in the evidence 
of progress in the institution, and their grateful remembrance of 
deceased instructors ; after which Rev. E. L. Heermance, Rev. 
John Churchill, Rev. O. F. Parker and Dea. Samuel Holmes were 
appointed a committee to cooperate with the Theological Faculty 
in obtaining the means of erecting an additional Divinity Hall. 

With this action the meeting was brought to a close. The 
evening was pleasantly spent in a social gathering of the Alumni, 
benefactors and friends of the Seminary, in the Library and public 
rooms of the Divinity Hall. Here a bountiful collation had been 
provided by ladies of N'ew Haven especially interested in the wel- 
fare of the Institution, and an opportunity was given for reviving 
the recollections of former years. The entire celebration was one 
of much enjoyment to all present, and the general feeling expressed 
by the Alumni of the Seminary, as they parted to return to their 
several fields of labor, was that of thankfulness for the past and 
strong hope for the future. 



[APPENDIX.] 

Theological Seminary of Yale College, 

l§72-73. 



FA GULTY. 

Rev. NOAH PORTER, D.D., LL.D., President. 

Rey. LEONARD BACON, D.D., LL.D., Church Polity and American Church 
History. 

Rev. GEORGtE E. DAY, D.D., The Hebrew Language and Literature and Bibli- 
cal Theology. 

Rev. SAMUEL HARRIS, D.D., LL.D., Systematic Theology. 

Rev. JAMES M. HOPPIN, D.D., Homiletics and the Pastoral Charge. 

Rev. GEORG-E P. FISHER, D.D., Ecclesiastical History. 

Rev. timothy DWIGHT, D.D., Sacred Literature and N'eiu Testament Gh-eek. 



SPECIAL LECTURERS. 
Rev. THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D., LL.D., on the Religions mentioned in the 

Old Testament. 
Rev. NOAH PORTER, D.D., LL.D., on Recent Systems of Philosophy in their 

Relations to Natv/ral and Revealed Religion. 
Prof. EDWARD E. SiVLISBURY, LL.D., on Mohaminedanism. 
Rev. henry WARD BKBCHER, on Preaching. 
Prof. FRANCIS BACON, M.D., on the Preservation of Health. 



The term of study for the year "I2-'73 commenced on Thursday, September 12th, 
1812, and will continue till the third Thursday in May, 1873, when the Anniversary 
and the Annual Meeting of the Theological Alumni will be held. The Semit)ary is 
open, on equal terms, to students of every Christian denomination. Letters of 
inquiry may be addressed to any of the Professors. 

The number of students in attendance in the 51st year of the Seminary is: Res- 
ident Licentiates, 2; Senior Class, 22; Middle Class, 26; Junior Class, 46; Total 
96. The whole number in all the Departments of the University is 904. 



FORM OF BEQUEST. 
As the funds of the Theological Department are held by the 
Corporation entirely distinct from those of the other Departments 
of the College, it is important to remember that, in bequests 
designed especially for the Theological Department, this design 
should he expressly mentioned^ in some form like the folloTV'ing : — 
" I give to the President and Fellows of Yale College in the City 
of ISTew Haven, and the State of Connecticut, for the use of the 
Theological Department," etc. 



TllK 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANMYERSARY 



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IVCAY 15tlL and 16tli, 1872. 



NEW HAVEN: 

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